Holy cow!! Nike just served Boris Berian at the Hoka One One Meet - They are suing him for breach of contract

malmo wrote:

dose o' real wrote:

If this is the case, Nike is under the impression it can treat its athletes like their Asian sweatshop employees. I'll get the popcorn.

But they signed a contract.

If parts of a contract are determined to be illegal, then it doesn't matter. There could be protections for Berian.

DMBEAY wrote:

There's a reason we have contracts, there's a reason we have courts.

If you sign a contract -- READ IT, UNDERSTAND IT, and then HONOR IT.

It's that simple.

This.

/thread

Fill Nite wrote:

DMBEAY wrote:

There's a reason we have contracts, there's a reason we have courts.

If you sign a contract -- READ IT, UNDERSTAND IT, and then HONOR IT.

It's that simple.

This.

/thread

The contract ended. The terms were honored. Nike was allowed to match the offer of another company. The contract was complied with.

Regardless of the legal issues, this is a an incredibly stupid move on Nike's part. Berian is very well-liked, has a great backstory, and is headed towards a possible Olympic medal. Nike will back down. Serving him at a meet is low class and petty,

dfvgfddfgfbgnf wrote:

I can't decide who looks like bigger idiots in this case. Berian, his agent, or the morons in this thread who think that Berian has better than a 1% chance of beating this lawsuit. I think it's gotta be his agent by a nose, but it's a tough one.

Right of first refusal means that by definition he doesn't get to weigh both offers and choose. He gets to demand that Nike give him what NB was offering and if Nike agrees, he is a Nike athlete. They agreed, and his idiot agent told him to walk anyway despite the obvious legal liability of that decision.

Nike likely only matched the annual stipend amounts, but had very aggressive reduction clauses should Boris not perform. This is why Symmonds went with Brooks over Nike, because his Brooks offer had no reductions for several years, whereas Nike would have cut his pay substantially had he gotten injured or not made teams/podiums.

Is that a real match then? That is what Boris and his agent are likely to use as their defense. I'm no lawyer though, so only the legal experts can tell me whether that holds up??

And they presented... wrote:

.

malmo wrote:

But they signed a contract.

...and the presented the financials to Nike. Then Nike made their offer to match what Nike wanted to match. Their alternative matching offer was turned down. Are you implying that a signed contract that ended, can imply a new contract must be agreed to? Nike only has the right to match. Not the right to force signing of their contract.

I'm talking about Nike's slave labor factories .... "but they signed a contract"

dose o' real wrote:

malmo wrote:

But they signed a contract.

If parts of a contract are determined to be illegal, then it doesn't matter. There could be protections for Berian.

I'm not disagreeing with you.

The attorney fees to defend this case could be quite high. Maybe bankruptcy now would be an option to consider so that Berrian could take his later Olympic gold profits free of Nike claims. Nike may have not wisely chosen its battles bc other athletes may be more hesitant to sign with Nike after this.

Everyone just hates L.A. athletes. That's a fact.

new low even for Nike wrote:

4L or bust wrote:

This is my favorite of all the nutty comments. But it'd be fun to see a "supervised" 3L in court against counsel for an $86 billion corporation.

If they don't have a case and are hoping to win by intimidation, any law student could win.

Thank you.

First of all, my suggestion to seek out pro bono legal assistance was clearly in the context of Berian's presumably limited financial resources. Pro bono help would definitely be superior to Berian's abilty to defend himself pro se, which might be his only other option if New Balance or his agent doesn't indemnify him. Matching legal firepower with Nike's counsel would require matching litigation budgets - something I'm assuming Berian doesn't have.

Second, while Nike might be willing to pay for their attorneys to write and file this complaint, I can assure you they are not willing to spend significant additional money fighting this all the way to court. This case will never go to trial, ever. Nike is hoping to intimidate Berian into a quick settlement. Even the law departments at $86B companies have budgets, and Nike's legal group has bigger fish to fry than Boris Berian. If Berian comes back represented by anyone at all other than himself, that would move things to settlement all the more quickly.

For what its worth, here at the firm biographies of Nike's attorneys who signed the complaint:

Kennon Scott - a 7th year associate a Stoel Rives who most likely did actual drafting of the complaint

She is probably billed out at around $400/hour.

Per Ramfjord - a seasoned litigator with over 30 years experience who probably supervised Kennon Scott.

My guess is that Ramfjord advised Nike to launch this shot and sit back and wait for Berian and his agent to come back and talk settlement. Someone with Ramfjord's experience probably has a billing rate on the order of $800-1000/hour. Even Nike would want to limit the amount of time this guy bills, and wouldn't want to pay him any more than necessary.

The details of the contract are not fully known, and even if they are then 90% of posters here, myself included, do not have the legal knowledge to discuss this matter.

That said, if it does transpire Boris agreed to a contract and then broke the terms, then sorry but that is stupid and any legal repercussions are deserved.

In the NFL there are restricted free agents. BB was a restricted free agent. CJ Anderson was a restricted free agent, the Miami Dolphins made him and offer, the Broncos matched it and he is now a Bronco. He had no choice where he played. Had he said no to Denver and showed up to Miami, I bet he'd have been served too (as well as not been paid or allowed to play). Kevin Durant in basketball had the same thing in his Nike contract a few years ago. Nike had the right to match or beat any offer. BB should have asked that provision been removed and if they refused to, not signed it. He messed up. This is why many runners that show up and blow up the scene from out of nowhere often don't/can't switch shoe companies. The company who took a chance on them first has the right to match any future contract. The first to the party reserved the best seat in the house, unless they get up and say no we aren't matching that. I.E. Meb with sketchers.

i dont think anyone is arguing about whether this is how the NFL works... question is about the specific words in this contract and whether hawi sending nike this contract was an acceptance...

Berian is from Colorado and only moved west a year or two ago.

A real question is how did Hawi eff this up so bad, or did he?

He's dealt with Nike contracts before, including all of these issues with moving on (his brother Meb to Sketchers). It's possible he has a hate-on for them that clouded his judgement.

However, like others, I strongly suspect that the "match" was weak (eg reductions, weak bonus structure) and entirely refusable. Nike has the low class to take a run at a guy "on principle," just to throw their weight around. They've shown this over and over. Cap threatening Magness at a meet. Salazar basically assaulting Lomong. Now serving Berian legal papers before a race?

Disgusting.

A borderline pro would be better off working at a shoe store (and wearing shoes that didn't fall apart) than signing on with these fairweather fockers.

People are claiming Nike is doing something wrong, when in fact it happens every year in other sports. That is why I mentioned the NFL.

No one on the boards knows the language of the contract,but you either match it or you don't. Common sense would say changing something like who can coach you would in fact be a fundamental change of the New Balance contract. Maybe that exists, maybe it doesn't and I am sure that we will find that out here in the future.

The closest thing to this is the Kevin Durant situation a few years ago. Nike matched(beat I believe) UA's offer and KD was forced to go with them. I don't think he had any hard feelings about it, but still the same thing.

If BB wanted out of Nike so badly, he should not have negotiated a deal until 180 day mark and lived off an interest free loan from his agent. That happens in holdouts of other sports all the time. Race unattached until he 181st day, sign a deal that is over inflated to cover all your expenses from the prior 180 days and pay your agent back. BB didn't do this and messed up (assuming Nike did match the offer).

Hawi sending Nike the contract shows acceptance. He should have been upfront with NB saying Nike can match any deal and we must take it. He got Meb a deal so rich no one else would match it, so Nike let him go. He didn't do this with BB and obviously Nike was fine with matching his offer. He should of had NB offer some deal that had some ridiculous term that Nike would never match.

Definitely seeing Nike shills flock to this thread now. Whatever Nike might have gained through this ill-advised move, they have now lost through the bad PR this fiasco will continue to generate. Whoever made this decision should be fired for Nike to save face.

Another thing that gets me about this is that to avoid all of this he had to race unattached for 6 months DURING AN OLYMPIC YEAR. Sure, he could have then signed with any company he chose, ran the US Trials, but then once on the team he has to wear Nike anyway in the Olympics.

Nike crafted this contract to screw his marketability so shame on them. Shame on his agent for accepting the terms, and shame on the sport for allowing itself to be run by bullies. No one is winning here.