US Senate launches inquiry into PGA Tour’s merger with the PIF

The United States Senate has opened an inquiry into the agreement between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia. The official information is that the probe seeks to understand the ins and outs of the deal and how the new entity that will emerge will function.

Just six days after the PGA/PIF deal was announced, Democratic Connecticut State Senator Richard Blumenthal made the announcement on his Twitter account. According to the legislator, the request was made for "records, documents, & other evidence of important facts."

Blumenthal is the chairman of the chamber’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Among the motivations for the initiation of the inquiry, he cited that the PIF has been allegedly singled out as an instrument of 'sportswashing' "given Saudi Arabia's deeply disturbing human rights record at home and abroad".

The document that makes public the inquiry adds as a cause for concern that "prior to this agreement, the PGA Tour was one of the loudest critics of LIV's Golf with Saudi Arabia".

As a third major concern, the document cites the tax issue. Specifically, according to the injunction, the PGA has expressed its intention to maintain its tax-exempt status in the future after the agreement is executed. This raises questions about the benefits that a foreign government may derive, albeit indirectly, from U.S. tax policy.

From the very day the deal was announced, Senator Blumenthal expressed his concerns on Twitter. In his first tweet on the matter, he expressed that the merger "seems to betray victims of human rights abuses."

A day later and also through Twitter, the legislator described the agreement as a "PGA sellout". Meanwhile, in his third tweet about the topic, he used the qualifier: "PGA betrayal."

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What PIF and PGA Tour must submit

Both entities must submit a number of documents and records by June 26, 2023. These materials are:

• All records referring or related to the relationship between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.
• All records referring or related to the relationship between the PGA and PIF or any of its offices.
• All record referring or related to the agreement PIF/PGA.
• All communications between the PGA Tour Commissioner, PGA Board of Directors, PGA Player Advisory Council, and/or PGA Executive Leadership concerning LIV Golf.
• All records referring or relating to any dispute between PGA and PIF, LIV Golf, Jay Monahan, or Yasir Al-Rumayyan.
• All records referring or relating to PGA Tour's tax-exempt status.
• All records produced in response to any inquiry or investigation by any law enforcement or regulatory agency regarding the previously mentioned topics.
• All organizational charts reflecting corporate structure, officers, directors, and employees for PGA Tour as it is currently formed, as well as for any new entity formed as a result of the agreement.

In accordance with the procedures established for this type of investigation, experts appointed by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will study these materials and recommend to the subcommittee the actions they deem necessary.