(St. Louis) The NFL and Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke will pay US $ 790 million to settle a lawsuit brought by interests in St. Louis over the club’s relocation from Missouri to California, according to a joint statement from the city and county of St. Louis.
Details of the deal were not disclosed, nor were the specific amounts paid by Kroenke and the owners of 31 other NFL squads.
Authorities in St. Louis have yet to determine how these funds will be used.
The settlement, obtained in mediation, puts an end to four-and-a-half-year proceedings. Kroenke and the NFL failed in their attempts to see the lawsuit unsuccessful or at least moved to another jurisdiction. The courts, for their part, responded positively to requests from St. Louis to reveal the owners’ financial information, resulting in this swift settlement.
The more than $ 1 billion lawsuit, filed in 2017 on behalf of the City of St. Louis, the County of St. Louis and the St. Louis Regional Convention ans Sports Complex Authority, was scheduled to be heard on January 10. She claimed that the Rams’ move to Los Angeles deprived the region of millions of dollars in various taxes, that it was instigated as early as 2013, that the team subsequently lied about its intentions and that the league ignored its own relocation rules by allowing this move.
The NFL, Rams and Kroenke argued that these rules were not set in stone and that the league had the right to approve this move which was clearly in the best interests of the league and the owners of the 32 teams.
A series of court setbacks by Kroenke and the NFL have expedited settlement in this case.