Nothing earth-shattering here, but a couple of interesting procedural updates, in light of Precourt Sports Ventures (PSV) and Major League Soccer (MLS) formally providing notice to the City of Columbus of their intent to cease playing at Mapfre Stadium in 2019, and also requesting bona fide offers for interested local parties to purchase the team.

As I also previously noted, things had been fairly quiet from Attorney General Mike DeWine, regarding the filing of the Preliminary Injunction, which is necessary to prevent the Crew from moving pending a trial. As we finally got the notice from PSV/MLS, I’d expect that motion to be filed shortly. In the meantime, the wheels of justice continue to grind (slowly).

Amended Complaint:

The City of Columbus on March 12, 2018, filed an Amended Complaint and served the same on PSV/MLS on March 14. That will extend the time for the response from the defendants out to April 12, 2018. Again, we may not get an Answer from the defendants at that time; they may file a motion of some sort (likely a motion to dismiss).

As to what amendments were made…uh, there wasn’t much of anything that’s changed. All I could find after reading through it (twice) was a change to the description of who owns Mapfre Stadium. So, not too much there, aside from correcting what I assume was an error.

Discovery:

Of more interest (and what I assume triggered that letter from PSV/MLS), is that it appears on March 16, 2018, some sort of discovery document was served on PSV/MLS.

Also of note: We know who counsel for PSV is (Dan Cvetanovich). Now, I’m not sure if this is the plaintiffs making a demand of PSV/MLS to provide/preserve documents, or if the plaintiffs themselves served some documents on PSV/MLS, or if the plaintiffs are requesting documents already (it would be pretty early for that, but not necessarily unprecedented). Unfortunately, we won’t see that information, unless somebody files a motion to compel the production of some particular information. What was sent to PSV/MLS could be anything that conforms with the Ohio local rules regarding discovery (Rule 26).

Anyway, we still await the motion by the plaintiffs to secure the preliminary injunction. It’s possible PSV/MLS could file their motion before that, of course, but with the notice to cease playing at Mapfre being filed, it appears to be full speed ahead.