PGA Tour–LIV Golf, no more courts…well, no

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As we know, the framework agreement between PGA Tour and PIF (the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund) sanctioned the immediate ceasefire regarding any ongoing legal dispute. In compliance with the agreement, in the following days the parties presented a joint application in which they expressed their willingness to renounce any reciprocal claim, thus also precluding any possibility of re-proposing the cases in the future.

Pga Tour and Pif

So, courtrooms, chapter closed? This is not quite the case, but not by the will of the signatories of the agreement. The New York Times had a hand in it, presenting another request, of a very different tenor.

The subject of the dispute triggered by the US newspaper are the documents produced by the parties during the case which, I remind you, concerned the alleged violation of antitrust rules by the PGA Tour. The NYT maintains that at least a part of these documents, classified during the case and destined, according to the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, to remain so, must be made public, in the name of the right to information.

According to the NYT lawyers, the public interest must prevail over the "potential competitive damage" feared by the lawyers of the Tours, in particular by the pool of those of LIV Golf. In the last session held in the District Court, Judge Beth Labson Freeman did not reject the NYT's motion, which requires the publication of 62 documents.

However, you said that 48 of these documents are classified on the basis of correct principles of "just cause". Even on the hearings of the Senate Committee, PIF and PGA Tour had to bend to the will of the U.S.Department of Justice.

In the framework agreement, an important passage is the mutual commitment not to try to hoard "other's" players. Well, this promise was removed from the agreements, because it would have represented a potential and very dangerous charge in the event of a verification by the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice.

The Public Investment Fund is a sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. It is one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, with estimated total assets of over $770 billion. It was founded in 1971 for the purpose of investing on behalf of the Saudi Arabian government.

After initially pursuing a prudent investment policy and mainly providing loans for national development projects, he has since become a global investor. The government is planning Saudi Vision 2030 as part of its development plan to transform the Public Investment Fund into the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world. The fund is based in Riyadh. The current president is Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud.