"I think it will have no impact whatsoever," said Doug Logan, former commissioner of MLS. "At the present time, Phil and AEG have made a financial commitment to MLS and I don't think that will be affected by issues related to Qwest." Added MLS board member Alan Rothenberg, "I'm not worried about his ability to pay for things or his funding. And I don't worry about seeing his name in the headlines. I don't know of a single successful entrepreneur who hasn't been sued at one time or another." Let's hope so.
It's true that successful entrepreneurs are sued all the time. But it's never just another piece of lititgation when you're sued by the Attorney General of the State of New York. Rothenberg has litigated these sorts of claims and he obviously understands that this is a very big deal. I'm sure he's just trying to spin for Phil, but you can't credibly spin this situation to make it sound like it's standard business litigation. I'm sure he's less flippant in private. Fortunately, Phil is one of the few people in America with enough resources to make litigation against the AG of NY a fair fight. It doesn't necessarily spell doom for MLS. But it can occupy a substantial amount of his resources for a long time.
You have to wonder how big a role politics is playing in this. Pols looking for headlines always love to "pile on" when they see a chance to ehance their image with the public. And guys like Uncle Phil are big targets these days. I don't think an AG would be suing him if the stock market was surging right now. You can probably draw a parallel between what's going on right now and the way AG's have gone after Microsoft and the Tobacco companies in the past.
I meant that I hope it turns out to be no big deal. But being sued for 1.5 billion dollars by a state attorney general doesn't sound like "no big deal".