The Other Side of the Story: Riot Trying To Avoid The Regulation of E-Sports?

The more I read of this situation in League of Legends, the more I become alarmed by it.

I apologize in advance, this is going to be very dry and VERY LONG. For reference, you may wish to reacquaint with the competitive ruling banning Renegades and Dragon Knights, for starters. There is a point in all of this, and, if you don't want to read all the legal mumbo-jumbo, you can go directly to the end of the post and find it.

Let's update to the time of writing: The deadline for the forced sale of LCS team Impulse and Challenger Series team Dragon Knights has passed, with no word from Riot Games as to whether the banned ownership groups have found buyers for either. Impulse has been on the market three or so times in the last year or so, without success. Dragon Knights' ownership groups have been in trouble with Riot Games at least twice in the last 12 months.

There will almost certainly be another article, and probably later today, when Riot Games will probably announce if a buyer has been found for either, or what contingency measures will be invoked. It appears, if the latter, the options are two: Full seizure of the teams, the old owners get nothing – or disqualification and dissolution of the teams, leaving nine teams in the LCS and five Challenger teams. There had been at least one fan discussion of bringing back the one team relegated from the LCS to make ten, but that's illegal under the new ownership of that team, since that ownership now also has a team promoted to the LCS, and no one can own two teams at the same level.

Anyhow, I did quite a bit of thinking since I posted the last article, and I am becoming more and more convinced that Riot Games has fumbled the ball seriously enough that one has to question their motivations and whether they are actually attempting to hide something.

This is not necessarily true with the specific May 8, 2016 expulsions. I'm speaking more in general, and this involves the criminal nature of a number of the parties banned from the sport, and what would happen if they were brought to justice.

Let me state this up front: I believe that all of the banned owners (the Shims, Christopher Mykles, Chris Badawi, and the (now former) owners of Team Impulse) should be arrested for criminal offenses outlined in the May 8 competitive rulings, as well as sued for civil torts.

Since the North American LCS is played in California and Riot Games is run out of Santa Monica, CA, I would assume that, deep in the rulebook, the jurisdiction involved is California law. If someone who knows of the situation can correct me, I will accept such correction.

As such, I will outline the cases for arrest (and lawsuit) of all five parties.

Let's begin with a murky one which applies to both the Dragon Knights and Renegades situations. In both cases, the owner of the team was previously suspended for tampering with other teams' players under contract. In both cases, it appears as if there were efforts to subvert the banishments (by the new Renegades owner laying conditions that the old owner would return, and by apparent actions by the banned owner of Dragon Knights in the new ruling – otherwise, a resuspension would result in a double-jeopardy claim).

It would appear Riot Games could have a criminal case against both Chris Badawi (and possibly Chris Shim), similar to practicing without a license or some form of corporate “trespassing”. I am not clear on the exact California statute involved (there are several possibilities).

A much easier (civil) case against the Shims, Badawi, and Mykles comes from the falsification of documentation regarding their situations between the two teams. The California Civil Code, Section 1770, deals with “unfair methods of (business) competition”.

From the Legislative site of the State of California, relevant sections:

1770.  (a) The following unfair methods of competition and unfair or
deceptive acts or practices undertaken by any person in a
transaction intended to result or which results in the sale or lease
of goods or services to any consumer are unlawful:
(3) Misrepresenting the affiliation, connection, or association
with, or certification by, another.

This could apply to Mykles with respect to Badawi, since he is ruled to have attempted to deliberately misrepresent the lack of affiliation between the two, with respect to the illegal agreement to give Badawi half of Renegades the moment his suspension ended.

This could also apply to Mykles, Badawi, and the Shims, regarding the obfuscation of the relationship between Renegades and Dragon Knights.

This ALSO could apply to the owners of Team Impulse, regarding the lack of required contractual paperwork, and the misrepresentation to Riot Games that contracts actually existed.

(14) Representing that a transaction confers or involves rights,
remedies, or obligations which it does not have or involve, or which
are prohibited by law.

This could apply to the Mykles-Badawi ownership situation as well, since the transaction could not confer the ownership rights to Badawi at any point while he was banned, even if the actual transaction took place afterward.

Under California law, these are all civil torts. In my honest opinion, the nature of these torts should have been sufficient to dissolve the teams outright, but Riot, once again to protect the uninvolved players, attempted to keep the teams together.

However, it would appear Mykles actually did some of this during the vetting process in which he was allowed to take ownership of Renegades, and Riot ruled that Renegades would not have been accepted into the LCS had they known. This would mean that Mykles could be subject to several forms of criminal grand theft (because of the value of an LCS franchise believed to be upwards of a million dollars or more!) under California law, because he misled Riot Games and would never have received the team (and it's monetary value) if he had properly represented his situation.

A much more immediately serious criminal situation comes under the “failure to maintain a safe environment for all players” charge. Take this from someone who knows: That's a harassment/stalking claim.

California has one of the most stringent stalking laws in the country, owing to the number of celebrities living therein, California Penal Code 646.9, reading in part:

(a) Any person who willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly follows or willfully and maliciously harasses another person and who makes a credible threat with the intent to place that person in reasonable fear for his or her safety, or the safety of his or her immediate family is guilty of the crime of stalking, punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for not more than one year, or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both that fine and imprisonment, or by imprisonment in the state prison.

This is true for any action by any person against any member of Renegades, but this is especially true for any party in the Renegades' employ who did so with the transgender player, Maria Creveling. In fact, any such party would not only be guilty under California state law 646.9, but also the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which specifically prohibits actions against a person's sex, which:

"Sex" also includes, but is not limited to, a person's gender. "Gender" means
sex, and includes a person's gender identity and gender expression.
"Gender expression" means a person's gender-related appearance and
behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person's
assigned sex at birth.

AND federal charges under the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII, as related in this EEOC brief:

The EEOC has held that discrimination against an individual because that person is transgender (also known as gender identity discrimination) is discrimination because of sex and therefore is covered under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. See Macy v. Department of Justice, EEOC Appeal No. 0120120821 (April 20, 2012), http://www.eeoc.gov/decisions/0120120821%20Macy%20v%20DOJ%20ATF.txt. The Commission has also held that discrimination against an individual because of that person's sexual orientation is discrimination because of sex and therefore prohibited under Title VII. See David Baldwin v. Dep't of Transportation, EEOC Appeal No. 120133080 (July 15, 2015), http://www.eeoc.gov/decisions/0120133080.pdf.

So any party, and it appears by the ruling Badawi may have been one, who took any action to make a player on Renegades feel unsafe, is guilty under California stalking and harassment law – and, if it's Creveling, has both State and Federal Civil Rights charges against them as well!

Now to Mykles in this regard. It is clear that he is already guilty of conspiracy with respect to any direct act to give Badawi half-ownership of the team – the penalty under California Law being the same penalty that Badawi would receive for taking part in ownership of the team while banned. (Whatever that law might be.)

The “safe environment” harassment/stalking charges are far more serious, and I would assert that, one some level, Mykles is criminally culpable in this regard. He could, obviously, be a direct actor, having directly committed the acts. This is unknown.

At barest of minimum, his illegal association with Badawi, if Badawi took part (which is similarly unknown, but, as stated above, appears to be the case given the nature of the statement of the competitive ruling), could be considered to have aided and abetted in any of the above actions, which would be considered, at minimum, misdemeanor accessory in the state of California under Penal Code Section 31, one year in jail, $5,000 fine maximum.

If Mykles actually consulted with Badawi and agreed to such actions, that makes it conspiracy, with the same penalty for Mykles which Badawi would receive under Penal Code 646.9, as well as the Unruh Act and possible Federal charges as applicable if the actions were against Creveling.

How ANYONE, in the face of this knowledge, can allow Christopher Mykles to have anything to do with broadcasting League of Legends, or anything else, is beyond me.

And then, as I stated before, there is one new wrinkle: Should e-sports be considered sports, it is clear that such sports constitute “interstate commerce” under Federal law. This would mean that sports bribery laws would apply.

From the Cornell University Law School, US Code Title 18, Part I, Chapter 11, Section 224:

(a) Whoever carries into effect, attempts to carry into effect, or conspires with any other person to carry into effect any scheme in commerce to influence, in any way, by bribery any sporting contest, with knowledge that the purpose of such scheme is to influence by bribery that contest, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.

This would appear, should e-sports qualify (and the only question would be if it is considered “sport” under Federal Law), to be cause for investigation of:

• The trade between Dragon Knights and Renegades
• Their subsequent monetary and amenity relationships thereafter
• and their subsequent Promotion Match in the Promotion Playoffs, won by Renegades 3-0.

The obfuscation of the relationship between the two teams, in and of itself, could be considered a scheme or artifice to influence the Spring Split, on top of any direct involvement between the two sides in their above-mentioned match.

So that should take care of Mykles, Badawi, and the Shims.

Let's also go to the Team Impulse decision, and their unnamed owners.

All of the torts under Civil Code Section 1770 apply, as well as the following issues regarding the pay situation, according to the California Department of Industrial Relations:

• Any of the employees of Team Impulse could've filed a Wage Claim with the CDIR for the money they were owed, both in the 2015 Summer Split and the 2016 Spring Split, as well as additional damages.
• Any member of the team could see a record of their wages at any time, and, if the ownership failed to provide such information within 21 days of the request, the player could sue for $750 per violation.
• It is, in fact, a criminal misdemeanor to fail to pay in good funds as agreed upon. It appears that the ownership tried to skirt this law by paying only the minimum wage, and nowhere close to the agreed-upon minimum compensation as agreed to with Riot Games.

So there's criminal charges and civil torts there too – as well as the falsification of documentation, etc.

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If you lasted this long, thank you. There's a point to all of this.

I have now spent the better part of two blog posts reaming the Hell out of a corrupt bunch of criminal e-sports owners here in the United States.

Now Riot Games gets it.

I have laid out serious criminal and civil actions which should have been taken against Chris Shim, Sean Shim, Christopher Mykles, Chris Badawi, and the unnamed former ownership interests of Team Impulse.

I can only think of one scenario, given the magnitude of these charges and game penalties, why Riot Games has not gone to the authorities with this information, especially the “failure to provide a safe environment for players” charges:

Riot Games knows that if the authorities find out the extent of corruption in e-sports (with these rulings as evidence), they will attempt to legislate and regulate them, and Riot Games may not like the results of such regulation and legislation.

Too bad. Riot Games has a responsibility as a California business to ensure the laws of the state are upheld. If Riot Games is unwilling to see handcuffs on these people, it is an indication they have no desire to do so, and, hence, no right to do business in California or anywhere else.

I want handcuffs, I want them now, and I believe the good of e-sports DEMANDS them.