A U.S. District Court judge in California has “escalated the antitrust lawsuit filed against the PGA Tour by adding the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and its governor as defendants in the Tour’s counterclaim suit,” according to Rex Hoggard of GOLFCHANNEL.com. Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Susan van Keulen ruled that the PIF, which according to court documents “owns 93 percent of LIV Golf,” and its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, must “submit to discovery in the antitrust case and counterclaim as ‘third parties.’” Yesterday’s ruling by Judge Beth Labson Freeman in the Northern District of California now “adds the PIF to the suit despite the fund’s argument that it’s nothing more than an investor in LIV Golf and has no control over the day-to-day operations of the breakaway league” ( GOLFCHANNEL.com, 2/22 ).
