I don't like to play the "I have a law degree" card just for ***** and giggles, and I don't think that it's the end all and be all in legal discussions - there are people without law degrees working in specific areas who know more about the law as it relates to that specific area than I ever will. I don't want to have some huge moronic pissing contest about this but a lot of what you're saying doesn't pass the smell test. At the very least, I'd think that it'd be subject to some caveats.
If the League By-Laws require any lawsuit to be filed in the U.S., then any lawsuit must be filed in the U.S. Period.
I'm kind of on board with this, at least insofar as it relates to choice of forum, if not choice of law. That said, I have a harder time thinking that you can contract out of Canadian competition law, which is what you're effectively suggesting. Contract law, at least in Canada, is always subject to the law of the land. If you're an expert in jurisdictional law, I'll defer to you on this point and I'm too lazy to research it at the moment, but I've got serious difficulties in thinking that Canadian law is simply irrelevant in a situation like this. This isn't like choosing what state's law will govern a transaction. Otherwise, you'd think that NHL teams would agree that all of their disputes would be subject to the law of Russia, or some state where there is no competition law and then just do whatever the **** they wanted.
When purchasing a team, prospective owners must sign various papers - one of which is a document stating that the prospective owners agrees to abide by all of the By-Laws. Balsille won't be able to sign that paper, then claim "Oh - I didn't know that provision was there" or "Hey - that's not fair, I don't like it ... I want it thrown out." It's an "all or nothing" deal, and considering the NHL is a privately-controlled entity, it can choose who gets to own a team and under what conditions.
Sort of. It gets to choose who owns a team, sure. As for the conditions, those are of course subject to the law of the land. In Canada, at least, an illegal contract is unenforceable. If there are provisions on relocation that contravene the Competition Act, than they're out of the contract.
See above. Even though Citibank may have offices in all 50 states and in countries around the world, the "terms and conditions" you get when you sign up for one of their credit cards clearly states that if you decide to file a lawsuit against the company, it must be filed in ____ location. You get a card, you agree to that provision. It's that simple - which ... again, if the League By-Laws spell out where a lawsuit is to be filed, reduces any discussions about it to trivial ones.
You're confusing choice of forum and choice of law again. There's a distinction. From my experience with those sorts of things, they generally contain a provision that says anything inconsistent with the laws of the province where the person lives are void. Of course, that's not a great analogy here because the policy considerations in adhesionary contracts are different than something like this.
Re-read my comments ... the lease would in fact be a separate issue - one that would have to be argued in the U.S. since the dispute would be originating from there. You can't rent from a landlord in Maryland, move to Texas, and then sue your landlord there - the dispute took place in Maryland, so that state has jurisdiction.
Sure, the lease is a separate issue. The litigation relating to the lease has nothing to do with any potential litigation relating to the NHL. I see no reason why he couldn't sue to be let out of his lease in Nashville while simultaneously challenging the NHL's policies in Ontario. There's no connection between the two.
Disagree all you want - the fact is, if the NHL spells out where lawsuits must be filed, any ruling by the CCB will carry little if any weight in a U.S. court for the reasons I described above.
Again, I disagree with you here. If you're a lawyer or someone with expertise in jurisdictional issues, by all means say so. I just did a CanLii search and found many Canadian decisions discussing the application of foreign law in Canada, in situations where it was appropriate to do so. In Canada at least, you plead the foreign law and then prove it. If there are American lawyers who can share the procedure there, by all means do so.
The question is whether or not Buffalo's market is infringed. Even if the destination is Canada, the originating and affected markets are in the U.S., and as such a U.S. court would have every ability to make a ruling on whether or not Buffalo's market was harmed in any move.
Again, and I say this with the greatest of respect, I think that you're out of your depth on this. I acknowledge that I'm out of my depth as well, by the way - I'm not trying to be a dick. There are issues relating to sovereignty at play here - in determining whether Buffalo's market is infringed, you need to ask whether the NHL's provisions are legal. That question necessarily involves a consideration of both Canadian and American law, as part of the territory lies in Canada. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the Competition Bureau were to say that the rules violate the Competition Act, I would assume that, if the dispute were handled in the US, Balsillie's people would plead that the rules are in violation of Canadian law and, thus, unenforceable insofar as they relate to Canada.
Now, I don't even know the legal effect of a ruling from the Competition Bureau in Canada, whether it's law in the sense of a judgment or subject to challenge or what so there are a lot of open questions here. I think that goes for everyone in this discussion though and for anyone to be making blanket statements is a bit much.