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BOXING
VOLUME 27, ISSUE 5 / JULY 2015
Boxer Bernard Hopkins Puts Up $100 Million
Fight Against Promoter’s Alleged Antitrust
Violations
By Deborah Nathan, Esq., Senior Legal Writer, Westlaw Journals
Boxer Bernard Hopkins and his company Golden Boy Promotions have filed a
lawsuit alleging that promoter Alan Haymon is trying to monopolize professional
boxing and drive out all competitors.
Golden Boy Promotions LLC et al. v. Haymon et al., No. 15-3378, complaint filed (C.D. Cal. May 5,
2015).
If Haymon and his various companies are allowed to continue their anti-competitive conduct, all
legitimate promoters will be driven from the market, Hopkins says in a complaint filed in the U.S.
District Court for the Central District of California.
Hopkins co-owns Golden Boy Promotions with Olympic gold medalist and 10-time world boxing
champion Oscar De La Hoya.
The $100 million suit seeks an injunction barring the defendants from acting as both managers and
promoters for boxers, and from having any financial interest in the promotion of bouts featuring
boxers the plaintiffs manage.
According to the complaint, in the world of professional championship boxing, those who deal with
the athletes are divided into two distinct professions: managers and promoters.
Mangers act as agents or representatives of boxers and owe a fiduciary duty to act in clients’ best
interests.
Promoters are responsible for organizing and promoting professional boxing matches. They do not
represent or advise boxers, but they do contract with boxers to participate in bouts for negotiated
compensation. Promoters make money through the sale of tickets and television broadcasting and
sponsorship rights for bouts.
Federal boxing regulations under the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, 15 U.S.C. § 6308(b),
requires there be a strict “firewall” between promoters and managers. The statute prohibits
managers from having a financial interest in the promotion of boxers and from receiving pay or
benefits from promoters, according to the complaint.
Hopkins alleges the Haymon companies — Alan Haymon Development Inc., Haymon Sports LLC,
Haymon Boxing LLC, Haymon Boxing Management LLC and Haymon Boxing Media Group Holdings
LLC — manage numerous boxers, including current and former world champions.
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Haymon requires clients to sign an agreement giving him total control over their careers and
revenue-generating abilities, the complaint says, and he acts as both promoter and manager for
clients.
”By ignoring the firewall between managers and promoters … [Haymon is] essentially sitting on
both sides of the bargaining table,” the complaint says.
Haymon already possesses a dominant share in the management market and is now trying to
leverage that share into a monopoly of the promotional market, the suit says.
His conduct has an impact on the markets for managing championship-caliber boxers and
promoting their bouts, the complaint says.
Haymon’s anti-competitive conduct, accomplished with the advice and financial backing of
co-defendant asset management company Waddell & Reed Cos., is intended to foster his
monopoly in the markets for managers and promoters, the complaint says.
In addition to violating the Boxing Reform Act, the suit also accuses Haymon and his companies
of violating state and federal antitrust laws.
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