Testimony by EI President Jonathan L. Walker assists professional tennis sanctioning body defeat antitrust claims.

Plaintiffs Deutscher Tennis Bund, Rothenbaum Sport GMBH and Qatar Tennis Federation filed antitrust claims in Delaware Federal Court against the ATP Tour in response to ATP’s restructuring plans to be implemented in 2009. These plans included rescheduling the Plaintiffs’ Hamburg, Germany tournament from May to July and recategorizing it from ATP’s top-tier of tournaments to its second tier. EI president Jonathan L. Walker’s testimony at trial addressed plaintiffs’ claims and demonstrated that the ATP could not have any anticompetitive effect in any well defined antitrust market. Moreover, Dr. Walker explained that the rule changes at issue were procompetitive. The jury unanimously dismissed the claims that ATP had violated Section 1 and Section 2 of the Sherman Act.