The judge who blocked Disney , Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery from launching streaming service Venu Sports after a lawsuit by Fubo has ordered the parties to return to court in a bit more than two weeks.
U.S. District Court Judge Margaret Garnett issued an order Monday for a pretrial conference in New York to be held on September 12.
On the agenda will be the defendants’ pending motion to dismiss the suit; details of discovery yet to be completed; and the prospects of a jury trial beginning by February 2025. Garnett earlier this month granted Fubo’s request for a preliminary injunction barring Venu from being launched; the overarching antitrust complaint remains pending. Meanwhile, Disney, Fox and WBD have filed a motion seeking an expedited process in the U.
S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. They maintain that “time is of the essence” and that Garnett’s decision contained “multiple legal errors” to be addressed.
The Venu joint venture members are “losing tens of millions of dollars that they have invested in a start-up business that has been blocked from coming to market, dozens of employees who were hired to work for Venu are left in limbo, and consumers are denied access to the innovative new product that Venu would have provided and the increased competition that would result from a new product offering,” the motion filed last Friday argued. Since forming the JV last February, the motion notes, the companies have spent $74 million to prepa.