http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/8037850?MSNHPHMA
Claiming he was misled by new owner Clay Bennett, former Seattle SuperSonics owner Howard Schultz is planning to file a lawsuit in hopes of rescinding the sale of the team, according to a report in the Seattle Times.
The Starbucks mogul sold the team in July 2006, but maintains he believed Bennett would make a good faith effort to keep the team in Seattle.
Attorney Richard Yarmuth, whose Seattle-based law firm Yarmuth Wilsdon Calfo is representing Schultz, told the paper he plans to sue Bennett's ownership group in the next two weeks.
Said Yarmuth: "The damages that are being sought is to rescind, unwind the transaction. It's not money damage. It's to have the team returned. The theory of the suit is that when the team was sold, the Basketball Club of Seattle, our team here, relied on promises made by Clay Bennett and his ownership that they desired to keep the team in Seattle and intended to make a good-faith effort to accomplish that."
But recently released e-mails from as early as two weeks after the sale seem to show there was never any intention to keep the team in Seattle.
Aubrey McClendon, part of Bennett's ownership group, also caused a stir when he told the Oklahoma Business Journal, "We didn't buy the team to keep it in Seattle; we hoped to come here [Oklahoma City]."
While Bennett has haggled with the state over a potential new facility and hired local lobbyists and an architectural firm, Yarmuth told the Times that has no bearing on the suit.
"We're talking about fraud at the time the contract was signed. It's not merely what activities, good faith or otherwise, were engaged in after the contract was signed so far as lobbying for a new stadium."