Baseball ‘Has Issues’ With Dodgers Sale, MLB Lawyer Says

Major League Baseball “has issues” with the sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers that include objections to who will own stadium parking lots, a lawyer for the league said at a hearing.

Attorney Thomas E Lauria raised a series of objections today, just hours before a legal deadline that the Dodgers say they can’t violate. The sale documents allowing Dodgers owner Frank McCourt to sell the team for $2.15 billion appear to violate MLB rules, Lauria said.

Without changes, “we may have problems with this deal closing,” Lauria said.

The Dodgers are in court seeking approval for the sale from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross in Wilmington, Delaware. Without approval today, the team may not be able to close the transaction by April 30, when McCourt is required to pay his ex- wife Jamie McCourt about $130 million, Dodgers attorney Bruce Bennett said in court.

Under the sale agreement, Frank McCourt would be a co-owner of the parking lots. Those lots would be leased to the Dodgers for about 99 years, Bennett said in court.

The case is In re Los Angeles Dodgers LLC, 11-12010, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington).

To contact the reporter on this story: Steven Church in Wilmington at schurch3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Pickering at jpickering@bloomberg.net