UFC antitrust lawsuit settlement denied by judge, new trial date set

A judge has recently changed the course of where the UFC antitrust lawsuit seemed to be going in a breaking development. Judge Richard Boulware did not give the thumbs up to preliminary approval on a settlement that would pay out to former fighters within the promotion, both past and present.

There is expected to be further elaboration on this decision in the future.

The tentative date for the looming trial, following a status conference in August, is expected to be Oct. 28, as of this writing. This will transpire in the Nevada district and is the latest permutation of a lawsuit that dates back to 2014.

It seemed that things had reached a resolution point between all parties in March before Boulware deemed the 335 million dollar settlement too low which has led to the developments at this juncture. Now things are at a point where the powerhouse MMA company could potentially be in a position to lose billions of dollars.

Conversely, the fighters could also come out of the situation empty-handed once proceedings go to trial in Q4 of the calendar year.

Check out a key statement in the fallout of this recent UFC antitrust update below:

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Getting in-depth with the UFC antitrust suit

The crux of the UFC antitrust lawsuit is related to claims by all combatants involved that the UFC used anti-competitive tactics to gain monopsony powers and suppressing other potential competitor organizations.

They also posited that the UFC unilaterally dictates fighter pay across the industry and that the organization uses restrictive language within the exclusivity-minded contracts they have for their mixed martial artists.

The range of fighters this recent lawsuit permutation covers is from 2017 to the present-day competitors within the UFC. A unanimous jury verdict is needed for the fighters to come out with a more ample payout at the end instead of the more immediate injunctive relief that was proposed a few months ago.

Even if this happened, the UFC could file an appeal that could result in this case being drawn out for years longer.

This situation combines two separate cases with a 2010 to 2017 range, which initially covered as fighters like Nate Quarry and Cung Le. The second iteration of this lawsuit covers 2017 to the present and has been led by fighters like Kajan Johnson.

While many support this effort, there are also fighters willing to testify on behalf of the company. These UFC antitrust lawsuit cases are generally known as Le vs. Zuffa and Johnson vs. Zuffa, respectively.

This latest development is big but not necessarily surprising to the beat reporters who have been providing in-depth coverage of the ongoing legal proceedings.