The legal showdown between the Parramatta Eels and Zac Lomax may not be done and dusted by the time the NRL season kicks off in early March, a court has been told.<\/p>\n
The Eels have sued their former star winger as a result of the fallout of Lomax\u2019s decision to quit the club one year into a four-year deal for an ultimately doomed attempt to chase riches in overseas rugby union.<\/p>\n
When Lomax came to the club asking for a release, he told them he wanted to defect to R360.<\/p>\n
However the rebel rugby union competition subsequently failed to launch, leaving him in contract limbo for 2026.<\/p>\n
As part of their release, the Eels included a clause that he could not sign with another NRL club for the duration of his contract period \u2014 until the end of 2028 \u2014 without their written permissions.<\/p>\n
And when R360 delayed their launch until at least 2028, Lomax attempted to join the Melbourne Storm.<\/p>\n
The Eels have so far played hardball, knocking back the Storm\u2019s offer for financial compensation.<\/p>\n
The Eels said it was forced to take legal action in the NSW Supreme Court when Lomax and his representatives indicated that the terms of his release were not binding.<\/p>\n
The Eels are seeking a declaration that the contract is valid, while Lomax is set to argue that it represents a restraint of trade and Parramatta has not negotiated in good faith.<\/p>\n
The matter is scheduled for a two-day hearing before Justice Francois Kunc starting next Thursday.<\/p>\n
However the court was told during a directions hearing late on Friday afternoon that the matter could spill into the first week of next month starting on Monday, March 2.<\/p>\n
Significantly, the NRL competition kicks off with two games in Las Vegas the day prior, and the Storm and Eels meet for their season opener on Thursday, March 5.<\/p>\n
\u201cI must indicate to the parties, by way of return serve, to mix my sporting metaphors, that \u2026 prima facie one shouldn\u2019t split hearings,\u201d Justice Kunc told the court on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd whatever else may happen, it will be for the defendants (Lomax) to tell me why there would be terrible consequences if we don\u2019t deal with everything in the first week of March.\u201d<\/p>\n
The matter will now return for further directions on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The legal showdown between the Parramatta Eels and Zac Lomax may not be done and dusted by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[2095,64,63,689,13876,237396,237395,5634,5312,2623,237394,4466,761,762,2627,3354,185009,2041,2067,158,677,224640,9112,701,2619,42342,33195,41564,85,2617,226454,119275,2614],"class_list":["post-462673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-america","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-child-abuse","tag-competition-kicks","tag-contract-period","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-keir-starmer","tag-las-vegas","tag-legal-showdown","tag-melbourne-storm","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nevada","tag-news-headlines","tag-newswire-court","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-nrl","tag-oceania","tag-overseas-rugby-union","tag-parramatta-eels","tag-queensland","tag-rugby-union-competition","tag-season-kicks","tag-season-opener","tag-season-starts","tag-sports","tag-star-winger","tag-steve-zemek","tag-tony-mokbel","tag-united-states-of-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462673","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=462673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}