Did Tech Titans Head Off Legal Action or Provoke It?

power to crush rivals and squash competition. The CEOs, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Apple's Tim Cook, Google's Sundar Pachai, and Amazon's Jeff Bezos, whose platforms have a combined value of nearly five trillion dollars, testified that their companies face tough competition. Our business model is advertising, and we face intense competition. I would describe it as a street fight for market share in the smartphone business. Competition drives us tenovid and

it also leads to better products. We have a policy against using seller specific data to aid our private label business, but I can't guarantee you that that policy has never been violated. Joining me as Jennifer Re Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Litigation analyst, so Jender, the House Antitrust Subcommittee make the case that the big tech companies use their power to stifle competition and have to be reined in well to

some extent they did. I mean, what they showed is that they have, through their investigation, found documents that suggests that there has been anti competitive conductor or potentially anti competitive conduct by these companies, and they highlighted some of those documents. So, you know, but what we saw here is a snippet, and antitrust really relies on, you know, the totality of the evidence and all of the issues and decisions with respect to different conducts and different contracts

and strategies of companies. So you know, we saw this just a granule of really what needs to be looked at to determine whether these companies are violating the anti trust laws. But from this window that we saw with Cherry Pick documents, yes, what they suggested is that these companies have been ways abuse power in certain markets. Mark Zuckerberg got the most questions and seemed to have the toughest time, as representatives repeatedly cited internal documents to show

how Facebook has either copied or simply acquired competitors. Did you warn Evan Spiegel, the founder of Snapchat, that Facebook was in the process of cloning the features of his company while also attempting to buy Snapchat congresswoman. I don't remember those specific conversations, but that was also an area where it was very clear that we were going to be building something. And Zuckerberg was also grilled over the

acquisition of Instagram. How did he fare? Yeah, I think if you think in terms of the four different companies and which one came out the worst from an antitrust perspective, you know, in my mind it would be Facebook, and it would be this issue. I think Facebook, of these four companies, is the one that's most at risk to ultimately down the road, whether it's through enforcement or through legislation,

may face efforts to divest Instagram and or WhatsApp. And what the representative was able to do was show documents that suggested that the reason for buying Instagram was to take out a rival. Now, again, as I said, antitrust violations depend on the totality of the evidence, and so we need to see what the other side of the

story is. And there's always more to a story. But it doesn't look good, you know, if you go back to the Microsoft case, which is sort of I guess, the bible for how to move forward against these companies on a question of illegal monopolization, you know, the standard that was set out there was sort of shown to be met in certain ways by the documents that were shown and the responses that Mark Zuckerberg gave, you know, and whether as a general matter, the exclusion of this

particular rival or threat is capable reasonably capable of helping the exclude or maintain their monopoly that was the Facebook, which seemingly it does. And whether or not, at the time that the company was acquired, did it reasonably constitute a NACAN threat And you know, it looks like it too, because Mark Zuckerberg said yes that it did. So in your mind, then Mark Zuckerberg didn't give a really good answer or explanation for Facebook's actions that they were not

anti competitive. Well, he wasn't really given an opportunity. I mean, the format really was much more of a cross examination type format than it was information gathering. You know, with each of the lawmakers only able to have five minutes of questioning and wanting to get out all of the questions they had in mind, they weren't really offering the

CEOs much time to explain anything. And so again what we saw is part of the story and not all the facts and not the entire story, And so it's important what else is out there and what other reasons Facebook may have had for deciding to acquire Instagram and what it's other documents look like. At the time that acquired the company. I mean, there were three different regulators, or at least two different regulators that looked at this deal. The FTC did look at it for some time. It

wasn't a long investigation. That looks like about four or five months that they looked at the Instagram acquisition before they cleared it. And I believe it was also the UK antitrust regulator that looked at that deal and concluded that the companies at the time didn't compete, that Instagram didn't really have much of a foothold on the market,

and that it wasn't an anti competitive deal. So, you know, we also have to go back and look at all the documents that those two regulators were looking at at the time of the deal to to look at the whole story to understand what happened there. Tell me up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, what are the prospects for actual antitrust action by regulators? And we'll look at the testimony of the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, and Google. So my first question, Mr richis why does Google steal

content from honest businesses? Mr Chapman, with respect, I disagree with that characterization. I'm June Rosso and this is Bloomberg. For the last year, the House Judiciary's Antitrust Subcommittee has been investigating the business practices of the tech giants for anti competitive conduct that might lead to more regulation or even breakups. That investigation showed on Wednesday, as the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google faced some tough focused

questions backed up by a mountain of subpoena documents. The chairman of the committee, David Ceceilini, challenged Google CEO Sundar Pachai about tactics used to stifle competition. Investigation shows that Google's response was to threaten to delist Yelp entirely. In other words, the choice Google gave YELP was let us steal your content or effectively disappear from the web. Stupid Chai.

Isn't that anti competitive? Congressman? Uh, you know, when I run the company, I'm really focused on giving uses what they want. We conduct ourselves to the highest standard. I've been talking to Jennifer Ree, Bloomberg Intelligence senior litigation analyst, it seemed as if PAI strong goal to answer the questions about advertising tech, where the company built a dominant position mostly through acquisitions, So explain that issue and how

he handled it. I think that overall he was generally trying to follow what was probably guidance to stick with his own talking points and where he might have had difficulty answering a question, to go back to his own storyline and what he wanted to say, and I think that's what he was doing a bit there. But again,

you know, you have to go back and look. The Double Click acquisition, which is part of this at tech by was extensively and intensely investigated by want of the antitrust authorities in the US, extensively and thoroughly looked at before it was determined that video could go forward. And again, all of the documents that are available today were available to those regulators at that time, and so certainly mistakes

can be made. And maybe it was one of the other smaller acquisitions down the chain, and not just the Double Click acquisition that gave Google this control that they seemed to have across that whole chain of distribution from advertiser to publisher. But I don't think that he handled

it all that well. But I will say again what I've said before that the format was really more like a cross exam and without giving the CEOs much time to really respond and explain away what they were doing and what they were thinking and what the purpose for some of the their conduct was. So no, I don't

think he came off very well there. And along with Facebook, I would say Google has risk and they have risk in that area, and we are aware that the Department of Justice has looked at targeted that specific area, the ad tech space, with respect to their own investigation, which we understand may culminate in a lawsuit against Google or some sort of an action against Google. This year. This was Amazon CEO Jeff bezos first appearance at a congressional hearing.

Many of the questions to him focused on the company's treatment of small merchants who use Amazon's online market ice to reach customers. Here's Democratic Congresswoman Lucy macbeth asking questions about frustrated sellers. If Amazon didn't have monopoly power over these sellers, do you think they would choose to stay in a relationship that is characterized by bullying, fear, and panic. With all respect, Congresswoman, I do not accept the premise

of your question. You know, I would say that when companies compete vigorously, they often are going to invoke fear and even the concept of bullying among smaller competitors. I mean, intense competition can engender that same reaction as can anti competitive exclusionary conduct. I imagine there are suppliers to Walmart that would say the exact same thing. I'm only guessing, you know, it's scary to have to negotiate against such

a powerful company. And again we have these cherry picked documents. Now, you know, I'm not saying that Amazon hasn't crossed the line with respect to the way it treats online sellers, But you'd also have to see what else is out there and what everyone else is saying, and for each of those sellers, what their particular situations were with respect

to the pushback that they got from Amazon. So I would say once again that because antitrust and the decision as to whether conduct is anti competitive really is fact intensive. It's a fact intensive decision that's based on the totality of evidence, and not just certain cherry picked items. You know, you'd have to see everything else. But like some of these other companies, what was highlighted does look problematic. So it does suggest there could be a problem there, But

we just don't know the whole story. And until that whole story comes out, which it would if there were some sort of a trial against one of these companies, you know, we can't really determine what the outcome might be. Amazon has been accused of using data from independent sellers to create copycat products, and they've categorically denied that until this hearing, when Bazo said he couldn't guarantee that didn't happen. Yes, that's right, and that's not helpful to him. It's definitely

not helpful to Amazon. I mean, I think the issue was that there is a policy within Amazon, and it looks like that policy may have been broken. This happens in companies more often than it should, and it's at least according to Bezos. They're still looking at it. After the Wall Street Journal it reported on it. They're still doing their own internal investigation to understand what happened. And that's why he can't respond to it. But you know,

if in fact that is going on. It's not a good sign for Amazon, and it's just yet more ammunition to the extent that the Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission decided to bring an enforcement action, or Congress decides to go forward with some sort of legislation, it's just yet more on in their arsenal as a

reason to do something like that. Apple and CEO Tim Cook seemed to get the least heat, And the questions were really based on the App Store, Sir, we have never increased commissions in the store since the first day it operated in two thousand, and there's nothing to you from doing so, is it, no, sir? I disagree strongly with that. There is a competition for developers, just like there's a competition for customers. First, I think it's not

surprising that Apple got the least heat. I think of all these companies, Apples at the least risk here and its conduct is less sort of blatantly anti competitive to the outside observer. The idea that it charges commission at least in the beginning to some of the apps in its app store, really, to me, isn't an anti trust violation When a company has a product or a service that they can price the way they want to. And even if it's monopoly pricing, if they've achieved the monopoly lawfully,

they can lawfully price in the monopolistic manner. You know, if they've achieved that monopoly unlawfully, that's a different thing. But I'm not so sure that there are allegations that the development of the app store in itself was an unlawful monopoly. So I don't know that they got very far with Apple on this and the other idea that I think they were questioning Apple on that it might treat different app developers differently. You know, companies strike different

kinds of deals with their suppliers all the time. This doesn't necessarily violate the laws. You know, where a company is supplying another company in bulk, they might get better pricing than a company that isn't. That's negotiation, and I'm not so sure that that rises to the level of

an antitrust violation. So of all of the companies, I think Apple came out the most unscathed, and they don't think that's surprising because I think that they're at the lowest level of risk for an enforcement action to begin with. There are state and federal antitrust investigations into these tech companies. Which companies look like there might be some kind of

legal action taken against them. Well, my assumption is that all four of these companies are under investigation by the FTC and or d o J. The ones we know for a fact are Google and Facebook because they've disclosed that when these investigations go forward their confidentials less the company discloses it or somehow it otherwise gets leaked. You know, we don't know for sure, but they probably all for

have been under investigation. And what we know, because I think the d o J has been somewhat transparent about it, is that right now the most advanced investigation seems to be against Google. And we've heard a lot about the possibility of some complaint or challenge being filed against Google this year. You know, I say some sort of complaint or challenge because if it's challenged, there's always the possibility

of a settlement, although I tend to doubt it. I think the d o J would like to bring a lawsuit against Google, and they'd like to do that before the election, So there's a good possibility we'll see that and they could focus in this ad tex space. It could also focus on other areas as well, but we have heard a lot about the d o J looking at this ad tech space and having some issues with Google's control of sort of the whole supply chain there.

It also looks like the FTC may be fairly well advanced with respect to its investigation of Facebook leaks that are reported in the news that it's possible there could be some sort of an action again Facebook as early as the first quarter or maybe even the fourth quarter, And that could be significant because I think of all four companies, if any of the antitrust authorities are going to go forward and seek a court ordered breakup, in

my mind, Facebook has the most risk for that. So that could be an interesting development if that's the kind of remedy that they look for, if they file a lawsuit against Facebook. It looks like, you know, if Amazon and Apple are actually being investigated, they're a little bit farther behind, but it doesn't mean that there won't also be actions brought against those two companies next year. The instructive case here is Microsoft, and in the end, there

was no breakup of Microsoft. So what are the chances that, let's say, Facebook would be required to divest Instagram or what'sapp. It would be an uphill climb to get there in court. And you said it, I mean, this is what we saw in Microsoft. Microsoft was a really good case for

the Department of Justice. They did a good job. There was a lot of evidence of these long list of conduct and contracts and strategies that Microsoft engaged in that we're just blatantly exclusionary and intended for no other reason but to hurt its rival. You know, when asked what is your business reason for doing this? In many cases, Microsoft had nothing to say, and in some cases they did have something to say, but whatever they were saying was deemed to be a sham. So that's what has

to happen here. You have to look at the anti competitive conduct in the harm and then balanced it against whatever the pro competitive, legitimate business reasons for that exclusion was. And so in Microsoft, where you had a case where you really had this blatantly anti competitive conduct and no flip side, no pro competitive business justification that could be weighed against it. And even then the regulators weren't able to achieve a breakup. You know, it's hard to see

what it's going to take to get there. But Microsoft does lay out that possibility. You know what Microsoft in the appellate decision, the decision that resulted in reversing um the possibility of a breakup. What they said was that it will be in the legal exercise of market power if, as a general matter, the exclusion of that threat is the type of conduct reasonably capable of contributing to the defendants continued monopoly power. Well, you know, it's fairly easy

to say that's probably the case in Facebook situation. And then the second standard they said is whether or not that excluded company in this case, Instagram reasonably constituted in Mason threat at the time that it was acquired. These the two standards Microsoft lays out to say, First, is it anti competitive? Doesn't violate the anti dress laws, and

it looks like Facebook fits into that. But then what the Microsoft appellate court said was that the appropriate remedy is a really difficult decision because dibesseture is only imposed with great caution, and that's because it's long term efficacy is rarely certain. An absent some measure of confidence that there's been an actual loss to competition that has to be Restored Wisdom Council against adopting that kind of radical

structural release. It's that clause in Microsoft. I think in my mind that that makes a little bit tough here, because it's so hard for any judge to look into a crystal ball and to say, what's going to happen if what what will happen if we require Facebook to digest Instagram or WhatsApp? What what will happen to those companies?

And certainly a world in which those companies exist for users and exist in the way they do, well capitalized and with R and D behind them is a better world where they cease to exist for consumers or exist but not in the same shape that they're in now. And I think that's a very difficult decision that that judges are going to be very cautious about making. Thanks

jen that's Jennifer re Bloomberg Intelligence Senior litigation analyst. You're listening to from Bloomberg Radio Bloomberg Law with June Grazzo Boolberg. Postmates and door Dash are pushing a million dollar ballot initiative to overturn a California law designed to force them to treat rideshare and delivery drivers as employees. At the same time, an elite legal team at Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher is trying to avoid a court ruling they say could decimate the f based business model playing the long

game in California courts. Joining me as Christopher for Bloomberg Law team leader in the Business of Law, Chris tell us about attorney Ted Boutros, who leads the go team at Gibson Dunne. So. Ted Boutros is a partner at Gibson Dune, which is a well known white chee law firm. Uh. He's based in the Los Angeles office. Um. This is a guy who is the Seasons litigator, high profile Southern California attorney who's well known for representing a lot of

big name clients. He's also known for having like a very noticeable shock whull head of white hair that's kind of become his calling art in some legal circles. That's uh, it's the way that people think of him. Uh. Um. You know when you talk about Ted Ted bou trust, that's one of the first things that comes up. Um. But he's a famed First Amendment lawyer who these days has spent a lot of time going up against President

Donald Trump and the Trump administration in court. Among other notable clients, he recently represented Mary Trump, the president's nie, as well as John Bolton, the president's former national security advisor, in a pair of cases in which Trump was trying to prevent the publication of tell All books. Who Trust has also represented a number of media figures. He was the lawyer for CNN in a case revolving around anchor

Jim maccassas the revocation of his press pat Uh. He handled a similar case involving a reporter at Playboy, and he's been involved in related litigation involving Rachel Maddow. So recently, really a lot of his uh high profile has come from those cases, these First Amendment cases. He's also an

outspoken Trump administration critic on Twitter. He's gone so far as to offer to pick up the legal fees for anyone who um finds himself in court on the other end of the free speech lawsuit by the Trump administration, and Boo Truck himself has said he will defend those people in court free of charge. So so this is somebody you've got a high profile. Also, self identified as a liberal Democrat, has been involved in a number of

social related issues as well. Uh. He teamed up with Ted Olsen, who is also a Gifts and Done partner and a former George W. Bush Splicitor General, to challenge California's ban on same sex marriage about a decade ago and successfully had that overturned. He's a liberal Democrat, but he represents big companies in court against a little guy against environmental concerns. Or is that his firm that does that.

It's a little bit of both. So boot Trow himself also, you know, a little more quietly, has also been representing some of the biggest employers in the country in class action litigation brought by workers who have said their labor unemployment rights have been violated. Most notably was the case

called Walmart se. Dukes, which went all the way up to the U. S. Supreme Court, who trusts Um argued that case on behalf of Walmart, and he convinced the Supreme Court to rule um that a large group of thousands of Walmart workers who were doing for paid discrimination and harassment simply couldn't do that all in one class action lawsuit, and instead they had to bring individual lawsuits.

And that's a really good example of some of the legal work that he's done, particularly in respect to defending large corporations in court. UH. It's those sort of procedural almost some some of his critics might say technicality, UH, sort of the legal wrangling over the details UH and the intricacies of the law rather than getting to the actual accusations in any of those cases and and getting to a judge saying whether or not, you know, the

employer actually violated the law here. And that's you know, really been key part of his and and the rest of the Gibsons Done UH playbooks in terms of defending Uber and some of the other economy companies in court.

Do you know how many cases they've represented Uber and Postmates and door Dash in Based on our analysis of the DOCUS, it looks like roughly the Gibsons Done team has represented Uber and roughly fifty cases they've represented UH door Dash I think in something like fifteen, and I want to say there were nine or so UH for Postmates.

And all of that litigation revolves around the same central legal question that's really been dogging all of the gig economy companies, and that is whether or not that the drivers or couriers or food deliverers that these companies connect with end users via their app platforms, Whether those workers need to be classified as company employees or whether, as the companies are doing now, UH, they can simply make

them independent contractors who are largely considered basically self employee entrepreneurs. Is their strategy in these cases, just to avoid the main question with procedural maneuvering, to avoid the question of whether drivers are employees. There is and that's for a couple of reasons. So number one, UH, the classification of the drivers as h contractors is really a central part

of the business model. And if Uber and the other companies were all of a sudden force to make those drivers employees, they would have to pick up the tabs where things like workers compensation, over time, minimum wages, unemployment insurance, and they would also have to start kicking in tax money.

We see in New Jersey, for example, the state has gone after Uber, alleging that the company should have been classifying drivers as employees, and as a result of that gets out on six hundred and fifty million dollars worth of taxes. So we're talking about a ton of money here, and that's why it's really important for the companies to try to avoid a court ruling UH forcing them to reclassify the drivers, and so they've done that. They've avoided that in a couple of ways. One thing is arbitration.

That's gotten a lot of publicity the company's use of arbitration agreement. So when drivers signed up for the platform to start driving for Uber, they sign an agreement that there's any discuse that they wind up having with the company have to be taken to private arbitration. So that's behind closed doors, not in court. Those rulings are subjects to confidentiality, and so we really have very little idea

about how those are playing out. But what we do know is that the debates over the legal disbuse over arbitration have been sort of bin ponging around the courts, and so you'll dedicate this has happened several times in which the class actions filed, but the parties may spend years or more just debating the question of whether or not the case needs to go to arbitration without ever getting to the question of whether or not the drivers

have to be classified as employees. So that's the main tactics there, and we've seen that UM throughout California in particular has been a battleground states for that. But in addition to that, you know, Uber has been tactical in terms of settling cases when they need to. There is a long running case I think it's spanned seven years and then finally will less than a year ago, Uber agreed to settle that one for about twenty million dollars.

And so what the plane Eff lawyers say is that they're using some strategic maneuvers in the settlement phase as well. Because these are class actions, Uber is more often faced with several similar lawsuits filed by different groups of drivers

and different attorneys representing those drivers. And what the Planets attorneys say is that the company has used this reverse auction strategy and which basically, uh they play the Planett lawyers against each other to try to drive down the settlement off reaching a settlement agreement with the lowest bidder and then drafting that agreement in a way that it applies to all of the cases and essentially knocks all

of them out in one self swoop. So those are the two primary tools that they've been using to keep these spaces from getting decided before a judge. As far as we know, only one case and that was the case involving actually grub hub drivers has ever been decided by a court, and that was two or three years ago. A magistrate judge in California said drub hub drivers in fact are properly classified as contractors. They don't need to

be made employees. But what's interesting about that is that since that decision, California is updated its law in a way that most people think makes it much much harder

for company to continue treating drivers as contractors. Yeah, so tell us about that is that the provision that authorizes local government lawyers to intervene in these cases, it is so a B five was a very contentious piece of legislation that went into effect late flat year in California, and the primary goal there by and large was to make uber Lip and other gig company start treating their

their drivers as employees. And it created a bunch of hoops that the comp they have to jump through if they want to keep treating those drivers as contractors instead. And the general thinking throughout the legal community is that the companies are really gonna have a hard time meeting that standards and are likely going to have to reclassify the drivers as employees. And as a results of that, the companies have banded together and pledged a hundred and

ten million dollars on the valid initiatives. So in November, when voters go to the polls to vote in uh state and local elections as well as the federal presidential election um, they'll also be voting on a ballot initiative which would essentially carve uver Lift and other gig companies out of this new classification law of giving them a

legal shield. But what's interesting is that buried in A B five is a provision that not only allows the state, the California Attorney General, to enforce the law, but it also gives the power of enforcement to local lawyers, so city attorney, the district attorney, and the life which is out of the ordinary. Typically state laws are enforced at

the state level by the by an attorney general. And so what that means is that expands the pool of government lawyers who are going after uber Lifts and other gig companies now in court, and that could be a bit of a game changer for boot Rows and the Gibson's Done lawyers who are representing these companies because some of the strategic moves they've been using are not likely to have the same effects on government lawyers. Uh. And

there's a couple of reasons for that. Number One, the arbitration agreements that the drivers signed don't apply to government lawyers because the government doesn't sign those agreements. The lawyers prosecuting those cases didn't sign those agreements, they're not bound by arbitration and they're not forced to take those cases to arbitration, so they can take those cases in court and there's no real legal wrangling over the question of arbitration at all. As a result of that. Number Two,

the incentive to settle is a lot different. So when we're talking about the government lawyers, these are people who are salaried attorneys who are paid by the government. They have no personal financial incentive to settle here, Like they don't get legal fees, they don't get a piece of anything that that Uber would pay in settlement, and so there's really little reason for them to agree to a settlement unless Uber and the like, as part of that settlement,

would agree to reclassify the drivers as employees. And so that really eliminates two of the major tools that that Uber, Postmates and others have been used. Again court is Gibson Done involved not only the litigation strategy, but in the strategy you know, of getting a different law passed. Their

names have not shown up on the lobbying disclosures. The companies that you might imagine have a small army of lobbyists both in California and at the federal level trying to get laws changed in their favor on this particular issue. But certainly they're aware of it, and you know, just by looking at some of the defensive tactics that they used to try to slow things down avoid a ruling,

you can see where they're going with this. That the roadmap really is, let's pump the brakes here, hope for a win at the ballot box in November, and then we'll go back and settle or try to resolve any remaining litigation and we'll move forward from there. Did anyone to Gibson Done comment on the strategy that you've written about, Yes, they did. Um A declined an interview, but but via email.

Josh Lipschit, who was one of the main Gibson's Done attorneys who's part of Ted Boutrous's team said that the teams pure objective was simple and that's just to win the cases. Um and he he he. And Sienna Evangelie, who is another one of the top lawyers on the team, did a couple of things that we've heard elsewhere, which is, you know, the line from the companies is always, uh,

driver simply don't want to be employees. They like the freedom that comes with being a contractor, which means they can work when they want, where they want, and for however long they want. UM. At the same time, they sort of try to pour cold water on this idea UM that they're using arbitration as any sort of shields. They point out that, you know, the the terms of the arbitration agreements are clear to drivers when the juice to sign up, and they didn't really touch on the

reverse auction piece of it. UM. But in court filings you can sort of piece together some of their thoughts on that, which is essentially from the defense bars position. You know, the companies are just getting hit with a slew of class action which are often overlapping UM and maybe brought by planis attorneys looking for some fees uh.

And then there from their perspective. They never, you know, outwardly try to drive down the price, but certainly they're looking settled these cases and if they can resolve them on optimal terms, um, that's just good lawyering. Turning out to a wildly different topic. What do we know about Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez wanting to buy the Mets? So we know that they're interested in purchasing the club.

It has been reported that they've made some initial offer to buy the club from their long time owners earlier this year, and we also know that they recently signed up a new legal representation firm called Wattel, which is a New York City firm that's known for being involved in a wide variety of high profile deals, including those involving some pro sports team purchases. It seemed that if the Mets were going to get sold, what happened to

stop that? That's right, it's really been a long time coming. Seems like even Cohen, the hedge fund manager here in New York, was really the primary buyer and was likely to purchase the team. That deal appeared to be as good as done until in February Cohen abruptly backed out talking at some of the terms of the deal, and interestingly enough, in that round of negotiations, Cohen was also represented by the folks that walked out, and so he bowed out in February, and since that time has had

a change of heart. He'd come back trying to make another play at purchasing the team, competing with A Rod and j Lo, but of course this time around because they're represented by wacked out Cohens in the market for new legal representation. Thanks Chris. That's Chris op for Bloomberg Law, team leader in the Business of Law. And that's it for this edition of Bloomberg Law. I'm John Grosso and this is Bloomberg