{"id":368897,"date":"2025-12-24T13:20:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T13:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/368897\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T13:20:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T13:20:07","slug":"dana-white-given-february-court-date-over-missing-anti-trust-phone-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/368897\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana White given February court date over missing anti-trust phone data"},"content":{"rendered":"

2025 was a big year for former UFC fighters as they received a $325 million settlement<\/a> from the promotion, who was accused of using anti-competitive business practices to illegally keep wages down. That lawsuit (Le v. Zuffa) covered fighters from 2010 to 2017, and there\u2019s more lawsuits coming:<\/a> one that covers 2017 to present (Johnson \/ Dollaway v. Zuffa) as well as unfair arbitration and class action waivers in UFC contracts (Cirkunov v. Zuffa).<\/p>\n

Those cases are already deep into discovery, where the UFC is being forced to turn over any data related to fighter pay and contracts discussion. For years, UFC went back and forth with the court in Le v. Zuffa over the scope of that discovery, and were regularly forced by the court to turn over more than was originally given. One issue of note was UFC president Dana White\u2019s cell phone data, which was spread out over multiple phones, some of which he initially did not disclosed to the court.<\/p>\n

Now the plaintiffs in Cirkunov v. Zuffa say they\u2019re having similar issues<\/a> getting White\u2019s phone data, along with the data of UFC legal department official Tracy Long. There are big \u2018gaps in production\u2019 from both of them, leading the plaintiffs to suggest White and Long had \u2018additional undisclosed devices\u2019 with information that was not turned over.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s \u2018spoilation\u2019 and a big deal if the judge decides White and Long have been purposefully trying to hide or destroy information pertinent to the case. Now both are being summoned to court in early 2026 to testify.<\/p>\n

\u201cIT IS HEREBY ORDERED the Spoilation Hearing is set for February 4th and February 5th of 2026 at 9:00 a.m. Mr. Dana White will testify first and then Ms. Tracy Long,\u201d a court document declared.<\/p>\n

The UFC is currently arguing that the Johnson \/ Dollawa v. Zuffa lawsuit has no standing as many fighters signed anti-trust waivers stopping them from engaging in this kind of legal action. Cirkunov v. Zuffa is the lawsuit filed in response where plaintiffs allege the UFC\u2019s class action waivers are \u2019invalid and unenforceable.\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s up to Judge Richard F. Boulware \u2014 the same judge who presided over the Le vs. Zuffa case and settlement \u2014 to determine whether that\u2019s the case, but The MMA Draw\u2019s<\/a> Zach Arnold notes that getting caught destroying evidence is a bad look for UFC.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf UFC is found to have destroyed critical evidence, then it goes to both the heart of intent and illegality,\u201d Arnold wrote. \u201cIf allegations regarding evidence tampering, destruction, or evasion can be determined by the Court, then it creates a hypothetical scenario for Judge Boulware to rule that UFC\u2019s current arbitration clauses and class-action waivers are both unenforceable and unconscionable under Nevada law.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the waivers are nullified, the UFC suddenly has another situation like Le v. Zuffa where there\u2019s a very large class of fighters with solid evidence that the promotion\u2019s monopolistic behavior illegally suppressed their wages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2025 was a big year for former UFC fighters as they received a $325 million settlement from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-368897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}