{"id":512872,"date":"2026-03-02T00:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T00:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/512872\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T00:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T00:55:10","slug":"zac-lomax-court-hearing-latest-updates-parramatta-eels-and-melbourne-storm-contract-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/512872\/","title":{"rendered":"Zac Lomax court hearing latest updates, Parramatta Eels and Melbourne Storm contract agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melbourne and Parramatta are locked in 11th hour negotiations in a hope of reaching a deal which would allow Zac Lomax to join the Storm, a court has been told on Monday.<\/p>\n

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The Eels\u2019 legal showdown with the former winger has been delayed for an hour and a half while the two clubs are locked in talks.<\/p>\n

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The Eels have taken legal actions against their former star winger to enforce the terms of his release and in turn block him from signing with the Storm without their written consent.<\/p>\n

However when the two parties arrived at Sydney\u2019s Supreme Court on Monday, Lomax\u2019s barrister Adam Casselden SC told the court there had been negotiations overnight which were continuing.<\/p>\n

Justice Francois Kunc told the court: \u201cI always wish parties well to resolve their differences.\u201d<\/p>\n

The parties will return to court at 11.30am.<\/p>\n

Lomax was not present as the parties arrived at court on Monday morning for the first day of the hearing.<\/p>\n

Court documents detail the negotiations between the Storm and Eels including on January 2 when Melbourne chairman Matt Tripp refused to entertain a player swap proposed by the Eels.<\/p>\n

Mr Tripp proposed a $100,000 transfer fee, which was upped to $200,000 a day later.<\/p>\n

According to the court documents, the Storm made an offer for $300,000, with $211,000 to be in the form of salary cap relief and the remaining $89,000 to come in the form of a transfer fee.<\/p>\n

Parramatta granted Lomax a release one season into a four-year deal after he expressed a desire to sign with R360, only for the rebel global rugby union competition to fall over and leave him in contract limbo.<\/p>\n

MORE: NRL boss\u2019 warning over \u2018hung and strung\u2019 Lomax as stunning $250k fallout revealed<\/a><\/p>\n

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He attempted to sign with the Storm but Lomax\u2019s release included terms that the Australia and NSW Origin representative could not sign with another NRL club for the remainder of his contract period – up until 31 October 2028 – without the Eels\u2019 written consent.<\/p>\n

Lomax\u2019s lawyers claim that the Eels breached the deed of release by unreasonably withholding their consent to Lomax joining the Storm.<\/p>\n

His lawyers argued there was an implied term in the deed of release the Eels would not unreasonably block him from playing with another NRL club.<\/p>\n

They also argue, in court documents, the Eels benefited from Lomax\u2019s release, including by freeing up salary cap space. <\/p>\n

They say the Eels sought \u201cunreasonable and unrealistic\u201d transfer fees during negotiations with the Storm.<\/p>\n

The Eels have alleged on January 21, Storm CEO Justin Rodski texted NRL CEO Andrew Ando saying: \u201cHi Andrew, not getting anywhere at this point, can you apply the blow torch on Parramatta to get this done,\u201d the text message allegedly reads.<\/p>\n

According to the court documents, the message further read: \u201cLomax staying in the NRL is obviously a win for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis message was an attempt to use the NRL to place pressure on the Parramatta Eels to resolve the matter on terms acceptable to the Melbourne Storm,\u201d the Eels said in the court documents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne and Parramatta are locked in 11th hour negotiations in a hope of reaching a deal which would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-512872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512872","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=512872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}