Some more on this</p> http://www.ajc.com/thrashers/content/sport...916_spirit.html</p> </p> <span class="template"><span class="headline">Spirit owners' fight far from over</span> <span class="subhead">Legal wrangling continues over Hawks, Thrashers</span> <span class="byline">By TIM TUCKER</span> <span class="source">The Atlanta Journal-Constitution</span> <span class="date">Published on: 09/16/07</span> <span class="body"> The Hawks-Thrashers owners not named Steve Belkin got good news from a Maryland appellate court this past week, as did employees of the teams who feared for their jobs if the ruling had gone the other way.</p> But for basketball and hockey fans weary of the protracted ownership feud, the action by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals left many issues unresolved and likely signaled many more months of conflict.</p> "There's still a dark cloud over us," said Hawks-Thrashers part-owner Michael Gearon Jr., referring to the ongoing dispute. "But it's stopped raining, and we're not getting any more thunderstorms or lightning."</p> The appellate court threw out last year's thunderbolt ruling by a lower court that Belkin was entitled to buy out the teams' seven other owners at cost, then returned the chaotic case to the lower court for further proceedings.</p> Longtime Hawks season-ticket holder David Kleinbaum would just like the twists and turns of the litigation to end.</p> "The whole thing has been such a mess," said Kleinbaum, an Emory University School of Public Health professor. "I think it has held [the owners] back because they're fighting with each other. ... Until I see that there's clearly one group running the team for a duration of time, I can't expect them to run it the way I'd hope them to run it."</p> In the aftermath of the appellate action:</p> • Both sides will begin weighing legal strategies for the next courtroom round, which probably won't come until next spring.</p> • The Hawks and Thrashers expect to get out from under a court-imposed condition that they not sign players to contracts of longer than four years without Belkin's consent.</p> • And team officials who have opposed Belkin in the dispute can breathe easier about their job security.</p> In a court filing last year, the non-Belkin owners said Belkin "most assuredly" would fire "numerous innocent employees" if he were allowed to take over the teams.</p> After Tuesday's appeals court action, Bernie Mulllin — president and CEO of Hawks-Thrashers-Philips Arena parent Atlanta Spirit — sent a memo to employees, recapping the ruling and concluding: "At this time, it remains business as usual for us at Atlanta Spirit, and I marvel at how each and every one of you have maintained your focus on the job at hand."</p> Belkin and his attorneys declined to comment.</p> The non-Belkin owners see the appellate action as one that should refocus the litigation on the economic issue of how much money they ultimately will pay Belkin for his 30 percent stake, rather than on the emotional issue of whether they'll be forced to sell their 70 percent stake to him.</p> "We two years ago agreed to a process to buy out a minority partner, and through legal maneuvering and erroneous rulings by a lower court judge, that process has been postponed," part-owner Bruce Levenson said. "An appeals court has now recognized that mistake, and I would hope that we can get back to the business of buying out this minority partner."</p> But barring a settlement — there has been no movement toward one since this litigation began in November 2005 — the business of buying out Belkin will have to wind its way back through the Montgomery County (Md.) Circuit Court.</p> William Ferris, a veteran Annapolis, Md., lawyer not involved in this case, said that from his experience he would expect the case to get to trial in six to nine months. Depending on the amount of discovery required, "it could stretch out longer," he said.</p> He said Belkin has up to 30 days to request that the Court of Special Appeals reconsider this past week's ruling — a request "not likely to be granted," Ferris said. Thereafter, he said, Belkin will have 15 days to ask Maryland's highest court to review the Court of Special Appeals ruling, also a long shot.</p> Once final paperwork is received by the circuit court from the appeals court, probably in 30 days, the Hawks and Thrashers expect to get out from under the conditions imposed by a stay of last year's ruling. Those conditions banned the teams from entering into player contracts of longer than four years or from exceeding the NBA's soft salary cap unless they had Belkin's consent.</p> The lifting of the conditions could aid the Hawks' and Thrashers' efforts to re-sign Josh Smith and Marian Hossa, respectively, to long-term contracts.</p> Levenson said it'll be "nice to get rid of" the conditions, but he said they had not been an impediment to any moves the teams wanted to make during the 14 months they were in place.</p> Levenson added: "I don't think anyone can point to one instance since this dispute arose where it has had any impact on our efforts to build these teams. I would defy anyone to point to one player we weren't able to sign because of this dispute."</p> The legal dispute stems from an August 2005 contract in which Belkin agreed to sell his stake to the other owners for a price to be set by a series of up to three appraisals. The process went awry because the contract failed to stipulate which side would choose the second appraiser if both objected, as they did, to the outcome of the first appraisal.</p> Belkin argued last year that he was entitled to engage the second appraiser because he objected 11 minutes before the other side to the findings of the first appraiser, whom he also chose.</p> The circuit court agreed with Belkin and also found that he was entitled to buy out the other owners because they didn't pay him the price set by the disputed second appraisal.</p> The appellate court overturned all of that, saying the lower court erred in finding the 2005 contract unambiguous on the issue of who should choose the second appraiser.</p> Now the case heads back to the lower court with instructions from the higher court that the contract is ambiguous. The lower court must find a way to resolve the ambiguity and put the appraisal process back on track — or throw out the contract altogether.</p> With the appeals court taking the prospect of Belkin as sole owner off the table for now, it's possible settlement talks could be spurred. But there's still a huge obstacle — the valuation of Belkin's stake, which the disputed second appraisal put at $140 million. That was $52 million higher than a first appraisal that the other owners called "breathtakingly generous" in court documents.</p> Meanwhile, the business of the teams continues, with bi-monthly conference calls on which Belkin and his company's general counsel, Felix Riccio, join the other owners and Mullin.</p> The Boston-based Belkin has one third of the voting power, while the Washington-based Levenson and Ed Peskowitz have one third and the Atlanta-based Gearon and Rutherford Seydel one third.</p> By all accounts, the calls proceed professionally despite the animosities between Belkin and the other owners.</p> "We've had a black cloud over our head that I think is not as bad as some people think," Gearon said. "There have been no real problems since the Joe Johnson thing, except for the legal rulings last year." Gearon was referring to the summer 2005 showdown with Belkin over the Hawks' acquisition of Johnson.</p> Gearon continued: "In the Thrashers, we have the only Atlanta franchise to win any division in the last two years. And on the Hawks side, my expectation is that this season we're going to compete for the playoffs."</p></span></span></p>
