Michael Bisping and Former Agent ‘Scuffle' Before Judge Orders Him to Pay More Than $400,000
Former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping was ordered to pay former agent Anthony McGann more than $400,000 on Friday, but not before the two reportedly got into a “scuffle” before entering the court room.
Bisping and McGann have been locked in a court battle over McGann's assertion that Bisping owed him past commissions for his services between 2005 and 2011, according to a report by the Manchester Evening News.
Despite chastising both parties for fabricating evidence and testimony, Judge Richard Salter QC eventually order Bisping to pay McGann £320,000 for his services. That currently equates to a little more than $425,000.
The judge stated that McGann had “put forward false documents and false evidence.”
Though he added that Bisping had been “more straightforward, like McGann, he was guilty of “tailoring and trimming his evidence to suit his case.”
The judge eventually ruled that Bisping had signed a management agreement with McGann in 2005, thus making him liable to pay for past services.
Neither Bisping nor McGann came out smelling like a rose in the judge's estimation. Noting that, “Mr. Bisping was also a knowing participant with Mr. McGann in the scheme to defraud the Australian tax authorities by overstating Mr. Bisping’s expenses in 2010 and 2011,” the judge chastised them for an incident that took place while they waited to appear in court.
The judge had apparently been information by court security of “a scuffle between Mr. McGann and Mr. Bisping in the waiting area just outside the courtroom. I cautioned them that such behavior in the precincts of the court could not be tolerated.”
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The judge also noted that he would hear further arguments about who should foot the bill for the court battle, but didn't sound inclined to award either party the right to recover any of their legal costs.
Bisping has been on the sidelines since losing the middleweight belt to Georges St-Pierre and then getting knocked out by Kelvin Gastelum in a short-notice return, all within a three-week span in November.
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