ATP Drops Long-Running Court Case Related To Hamburg Tournament

The ATP Tour late yesterday dropped its long-running court case against two members, the German Tennis Federation and Qatar Tennis Federation, to recoup roughly $20M of legal costs from their failed '08 lawsuit against the Tour. The two federations, which own the Hamburg, Germany, stop, sued the ATP for demoting the event. A jury ruled against them. The ATP has a loser pays legal fees bylaw for its members, and at issue in the case was whether the bylaw is legal. The stipulation filed by the two sides in Delaware federal court yesterday offers little detail, other than that the parties have dropped the case. Legal representatives for the GTF and QTF could not immediately be reached for comment. Brad Ruskin, an attorney for Proskauer Rose, the ATP’s outside counsel, said a settlement had been reached in the case. The parties signed a confidentiality agreement, he said, so he could not say whether any of the Tour’s legal fees had been reimbursed.