Bellator MMA files lawsuit against UFC to protect confidential information

Bellator MMA has filed a law suit against the UFC at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to stop the UFC from obtaining legal documents to use it to its advantage. The UFC was initially challenged by multiple fighters in an antitrust lawsuit before Bellator got involved in the case.

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Reports say the UFC was asking for information relating to Cung Le, Nate Quarry, Jon Fitch and others who were suing the UFC for an alleged violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and to help their case the UFC filed two subpoenas that would force Bellator MMA to part with financial and contractual information.

However, Bellator MMA has no intention to share any documents with UFC and have filed the lawsuit in the hope of quashing or modifying the subpoenas. Bellator attorney Philip Kelly said that his clients have produced over 2,000 documents in response to the subpoenas and said the UFC are asking for much more information which according to Kelly is "sensitive, highly confidential information of no relevance to the underlying action."

Bellator president Scott Coker wrote an eight page declaration to explain why it would not be a good idea for his company to disclose the information the UFC are asking for.

"I am informed and believe that Bellator has agreed to provide documents in response to many of the Parties' document requests. However, Bellator cannot guarantee to produce some of the confidential documents that the Parties have demanded, as doing so would lead to grave harm to Bellator" Coker was quoted as saying.

Scott Coker also took a shot at UFC saying that Bellator has seen UFC "buy out, marginalise, and even drive competitors from the business."

"UFC is an aggressive and ambitious enterprise, and I believe that if UFC were able to gain an advantage against Bellator by receiving Bellator's confidential information or even simply leveraging the disadvantage caused by disclosure of Bellator's confidential information to athletes and others, it would certainly do so," Coker said.