Gordon & Rees Las Vegas partner Robert Larsen and associate David Gluth obtained a complete dismissal of all claims for the firm’s international clients in a large federal anti-trust class action involving the sales of tickets to the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
Gordon & Rees’s clients were the global authorized vendors selling all of the regular match tickets and the hospitality packages. The plaintiffs alleged that they and all others who purchased hospitality packages to the FIFA World Cup were forced to purchase tickets above face value as part of hospitality packages in violation of United States and Brazilian law and that Gordon & Rees’s clients were engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy involving FIFA and others. The plaintiffs sought hundreds of millions of dollars for a potential class involving tens of thousands of potential plaintiffs.
During a period of nine months, the Gordon & Rees team drafted a series of extensive motions challenging standing, personal jurisdiction, and the merits of the claim. Ultimately, the court dismissed all of the plaintiffs’ claims for lack of standing and ruled that the plaintiffs’ lawyers violated Rule 11 for making false statements to the court.
This was a high profile case that was reported in numerous media publications around the United States and Europe.