Fed Case Over

Landis and USADA agreed to dismiss the case with prejudice, in a filing yesterday. "With prejudice" means Landis can't refile. This looks like they settled, but we haven't seen any statements from anyone.

If USADA gave up the fine, then Landis is free to race, which is the immediate result he would have desired. I wouldn't be surprised if there were conditions not to talk about it, preventing either side from claiming moral victory. Independent of the merits of the underlying claims, USADA may have determined it was cheaper to let the fine go than litigate the matter; and Landis may have wanted his head clear for training and to move on, as much as he might like a deeper ultimate vindication.

We find it very hard to believe Landis would agree to a dismissal without at least seeing a filed reply from USADA if he'd been willing to pay the $100k fine. He'd already put his chips in, so there was no cost to making USADA show some cards. That makes us think the fine has either been reduced, or gone away completely as a condition of dismissal.




Note the dates were left blank, and negotiations concluded on the last day before USADA's reply filing was due. Though blanks are typical during negotiation, there's nothing like an external deadline to force a conclusion.

Velonews tried to get comment from USADA:

No details of the settlement were released and a USADA spokesman declined comment as to whether Landis’ decision to withdraw the suit involved any concession on the part of the agency.

Dirt Roadie writes in a comment,

Underlying what is presumably a settlement (as opposed to a mere abandonment of the case), there is probably some strong incentive and logic stemming from the fact that both sides had the possibility of losing.

USADA might spend another $100K litigating only to be able to collect the $100K "fine" against Landis if it should win. He would still be otherwise eligble for reinstatement. And if USADA were to lose (a very real possibility), the doors might be open to similar challenges to CAS decisions unless and until the CAS system is revamped to eliminate the apparent weaknesses.

Floyd probably had little to truly gain other than the vacatur of the $100K fine and perhaps some "moral" satisfaction. But the case would conceivably (or more accurately, probably) have dragged out long past his date for reinstatement in which case even a victory might have been too late to be truly useful.

So it seems very likely that the reality of the situation would almost dictate a compromise under which USADA would drop the $100K fine and Floyd would drop his case and its challenge to the CAS "system."

And, true, we will probably see no public comment. Confidentiality provisions are commonly included in settlement agreements.

It's almost always a good thing to have a resolution although it would have been very interesting to see how the merits of the case would have played out.