A closely watched lawsuit that claims Martin Shkreli’s and Gerard Kelly’s esports organization failed to pay its one-time coach is proceeding in New York state court, amid disputes over pre-trial discovery.
Rohit “CurryShotGG” Nathani, who coached Team Imagine, sued in February claiming he was still owed $25,000 of the $30,000 Kelly and Shkreli’s organization promised to pay him.
The judge in the case ruled Wednesday in ongoing pre-trial wrangling in the case, ordering Kelly to produce discovery information within 30 days.
Kelly had been ordered in May to provide basic summary information about any witnesses he expects to call in the case and was given 30 days to do so. Kelly has gone almost four months without providing any of the information.
Kelly has also been ordered to turn over “any and all correspondence, documents and/or memoranda” relating to: Nathani’s employment; communication between Kelly, Maelstrom and Nathani; the ownership of Maelstrom Gaming. He must also provide any contracts between Nathani and the defendants and contracts regarding Maelstrom’s merger with Odyssey Gaming. In addition, Kelly must turn over financial statements for any accounts used to pay Nathani.
Roger Quiles, Nathani’s attorney, filed an Aug. 4 motion asking the court to order Kelly to produce the information. The filing included an email from Kelly to Quiles from July 7 in which he said he’d “get to the discovery request in the next 48 hours.”
Shkreli founded Odyssey Gaming, a Challenger League of Legends team, in May 2015. But after the team failed to qualify for the North American Challenger Series, he bought into Maelstrom Gaming, an already established Challenger team. They later started Team Imagine under the Maelstrom banner.
The lawsuit lists Shrkeli, Maelstrom Gaming and Kelly as defendants. Kelly, who was a co-owner of Maelstrom when Shkreli bought into it, was the CEO of NRG Esports until April,when he moved into his current role. NRG is a multi-game organization with teams and players in League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Overwatch, Super Smash Bros and, as of Thursday, Smite.
