Lomax is engaged in a legal battle with the Eels after his former club launched proceedings in the NSW Supreme Court as a result of the fallout from his decision to seek a release one year into his four-year deal.<\/p>\n
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The matter was due to go to a hearing this week but has been pushed back to March 2.<\/p>\n
And on Thursday, the NSW Supreme Court confirmed that the matter would be the subject of a five-day hearing before Justice Francois Kunc.<\/p>\n
Significantly, the Storm open their season against the Eels on Thursday, March 5.<\/p>\n
It means that the matter will still be before the court when the two clubs clash at AAMI Park, scuppering hope of Lomax pulling on a purple jersey in round 1.<\/p>\n
The only chance of him turning out against the Eels is if the Storm can come to an agreement with Parramatta for him to sign with the Melbourne club.<\/p>\n
Lomax’s court date delayed until March | 00:50<\/p>\n
The Storm has reportedly offered a $200,000 transfer fee for Lomax before upping the ante to $300,000.<\/p>\n
Both those offers were rejected by the Eels before the chairs of the two clubs failed to negotiate an agreement earlier this week.<\/p>\n
The Eels have sued their former star winger in the wake of Lomax\u2019s decision to quit the club 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; however, the rebel rugby union competition failed to launch, leaving him in contract limbo.<\/p>\n
Lomax is set to argue that the terms of his release represent a restraint of trade. Picture: NRL Photos.Source: Supplied<\/p>\n
As part of their release, the Eels included a clause that Lomax could not sign with another NRL club for the duration of his contract period \u2013 until the end of 2028 \u2013 without their written permission.<\/p>\n
And when R360 delayed their launch until at least 2028, he attempted to join the Melbourne Storm.<\/p>\n
Parramatta said it was forced to take legal action in the Supreme Court when Lomax and his representatives indicated that the terms of his release were not binding.<\/p>\n
The court has previously heard that the Eels are seeking a declaration that the contract is valid, while Lomax is set to argue that the clause represents a restraint of trade and the Eels have not negotiated in good faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zac Lomax appears no chance to start in Melbourne\u2019s NRL season opener after his courtroom showdown with Parramatta…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,85,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-474380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474380","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=474380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}