NHL aims to block PSE's Rodier from depositions
August 18, 2009
Steve Milton
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/Sports/article/620044
This week's fur has begun flying in the Phoenix Coyotes bankruptcy case.
Yesterday afternoon, Jim Balsillie asked a bankruptcy judge to prevent the NHL from barring his hockey man from important deposition sessions this week.
Later in the day, the NHL filed a strongly worded request that U.S. bankruptcy court judge Redfield T. Baum force Balsillie's hockey company, PSE Sports and Entertainment, plus Balsillie and PSE vice-president Richard Rodier, to produce a large number of documents and emails.
The court will hold a hearing on the matter today.
The NHL says that before it questions Balsillie and Rodier in private sessions next week, it needs emails and all documents which the NHL claims concern PSE's "strategy to buy NHL teams through the bankruptcy process," which deal with the company's role in "participation in the Canadian Competition Bureau investigation" of the NHL in March 2008, and which describe how its bid will treat certain debtors such as Wayne Gretzky, who is part-owner and head coach of the Coyotes.
The league also wants any documents that suggest that PSE was helping the conservative Goldwater Institute, which is suing Glendale for the Arizona city's offer of subsidies to two prospective Coyote buyers: Jerry Reinsdorf and Canadian-based Ice Edge. The NHL also demands internal communications surrounding public statements or publicity campaigns concerning Balsillie owning an NHL franchise, presumably referring to the "Hamilton Predators'" season's ticket subscription drive of three years ago, and the current makeitseven.ca campaign.
The NHL states that other discoveries (seemingly from Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes) "strongly suggests that PSE is not a good faith purchaser and that (Moyes) has breached fiduciary duties" around the team.
Meanwhile, according to PSE filings yesterday, during Sunday's "meet and confer" teleconference the NHL told Balsillie's people the league would object to Rodier attending three key probes this week.
PSE lawyers will question NHL board chairman Jeremy Jacobs in Buffalo tomorrow, plus commissioner and vice-commissioner Gary Bettman and Bill Daly in New York on Thursday and Friday.
Each deposition is expected to take as long as seven hours and, though unavailable to the public, the information gathered will likely comprise a large part of Balsillie's Sept. 2 argument in Baum's court that the NHL cannot disqualify him as an owner.
The league announced July 29 it had rejected Balsillie as a prospective owner, partly on "character" issues, and if Baum agrees with the league on Sept. 2, the co-CEO of Research in Motion will be not be allowed to take part in a Sept. 10 auction to buy the Coyotes.
While no reason was given for the NHL's stance on Rodier, it's understood that because the NHL plans its own deposition of Rodier, the league considers him a potential witness and he shouldn't hear what other deposed witnesses say.
But PSE argues in yesterday's filing that Rodier is the only company representative who can attend the depositions, because Balsillie is too busy with RIM business. Rodier, widely referred to as Balsillie's spokesperson or hockey lawyer, is much more than that. He is the vice-president and general partner of PSE, which suggests an equity position, and "is the individual charged with overseeing PSE's bid and its interests in the pending bankruptcy action."
PSE argues in its filing that federal rules of evidence provide that corporations and organizations are permitted to have representatives at all hearings and depositions "even if that person is a witness in the matter."