LAUSANNE/BRUSSELS - The President of the UMB, Mr. Farouk Barki, leading the world of billiards, has sent an official document to those directly involved and to the billiard press to show that his organization has acted correctly in a case brought against the UMB. The PBA, Korean billiards organization, which is not affiliated to the UMB, filed an antitrust complaint against the UMB, dated 13th September 2019 towards the European Commission for the suspensions of PBA players. The PBA now claims that it has withdrawn the case from the EU-Commission in March 2020. PBA (Professional Billiards Association) did not publicly announce this withdrawl, nor has it informed UMB about this proceding. The UMB received the official notification of the closure of the case only on 22nd of June 2020 after request of its lawyers and published the news on its website the same day.
Mr. Barki assures: ''The accusation, mainly by PBA player Frédéric Caudron, that we deliberately did not publish the statement in March, is a pertinent falsehood. I would like to prove that with the official document of the European Commission, so now everyone can see the truth.'' The misleading publications on social media have put the UMB in a bad light. Barki: ''We now want to close this matter for once and for all. Be assured that the UMB has never asked PBA to drop the case.''
Frédéric Caudron, former world champion and most known PBA player, posted comments like: ''The UMB, as usual, does not give people the right information. This can't be a simple mistake, it's just a lie. It is very strange that the European Commission already closed the case in March, but UMB only published the official announcement before the start of the PBA event at the end of June. Why did UMB wait so long? Just to get the PBA negative in the news before the start of the new season.''
The case against the suspensions imposed by the UMB on players who participated in PBA tournaments, was brought for the European Commission on 13 September 2019 by the PBA and 22 individual players, in particular the non-Korean players in PBA events. The official UMB statement, in response to unjustified allegations: ''During 10 months, the UMB, by its lawyers, submitted to EU-Commissions its response against this baseless complaint in its strongest possible terms. As a result, the complaint had been rejected and the UMB has been informed on June 22nd, 2020 by its lawyers, that the EU-Commission officially closed the file. This simply means that the complaint filed against UMB, has been rejected for further proceedings. UMB never asked PBA to drop the case, never received this information from PBA or EU-Commission.''
Mr. Barki, when asked, confirms that there is no evidence of further negotiations between UMB and PBA. ''We invited a PBA delegation to Düsseldorf Airport in the days when the Viersen World Championship should have been played. We had some other meetings, but the PBA officially informed us that they would not come to negotiate. And after that, we asked many times to take further action to find a solution. They promised several times that they would get in touch, but despite repeated requests, we never received any reply.''
The UMB president says that his organization has temporarily stopped the player suspensions on July 15 2020, because the 1-year suspension has expired. ''As soon as players participate in the next PBA event, they will be suspended again for 1 year. A few months ago, we consciously changed that period from 3 years to 1 year, because we do not want to further dupe players who want to return to the UMB.''
The UMB president concludes: ''Be convinced that the UMB is the guardian of our sport and will always defend the interests of its members, players and partners in the best possible way. We hope herewith to have informed you conveniently and definitely clarified the situation.''
Below you find the copy of the email from the European Commission that the UMB received at the request of its lawyers. ''The European Commission, as we understand, had no further grounds for legal proceedings.''
The email of the UMB lawyers on June 22, 2020 at 1.07 pm. The official mail sent by the European Commission on June 22.
