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Arbitrator Upholds Bad Bunny Baseball Agency Executives’ 5-Year Ban, Reduces Agents’ Sentence to 3 Years
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Arbitrator Upholds Bad Bunny Baseball Agency Executives’ 5-Year Ban, Reduces Agents’ Sentence to 3 Years

An arbitrator upheld the five-year suspension of executives of the Bad Bunny sports representation company for inappropriately inducing players and reduced the ban of the company’s only certified baseball agent to three years.

NEW YORK — An arbitrator upheld the five-year suspension of the general managers of Bad Bunny’s sports representation office for making improper inducements to players and reduced the ban of the company’s only certified baseball agent to three years.

Ruth M. Moscovitch issued the decision Oct. 30 in a case involving Noah Assad, Jonathan Miranda and William Arroyo of Rimas Sports. The decision was made public Tuesday when the Major League Baseball Players Association filed a motion to uphold the 80-page ruling in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan.

The union published a disciplinary notice on April 10, revoking Arroyo’s agent certification and denying certification to Assad and Miranda, citing a $200,000 interest-free loan and a $19,500 gift. It barred them from reapplying for five years and barred certified agents from partnering with any of their three affiliated companies. Assad, Miranda and Arroyo then appealed the decision and Moscovitch was jointly appointed as arbitrator on June 17.

Moscovitch said the union presented undisputed evidence of “the use of uncertified personnel to speak with and recruit players; use of uncertified personnel to negotiate player employment conditions; giving valuables – concert tickets, gifts, money – to non-customer players; providing loans, money or other things of value to non-customers as an inducement; grant or facilitate loans without seeking prior approval or reporting the loans.

“I find that the MLBPA has met its burden of proving the alleged regulatory violations with substantial evidence on the record as a whole,” she wrote. “There is no doubt that these are serious violations, both in terms of their number and the scale of the faults committed. As MLBPA Executive Director Anthony Clark said, he has never seen so many violations of so many different regulations over a significant period of time.

María de Lourdes Martínez, a spokeswoman for Rimas Sports, said she was checking to see if the company had any comments on the decision. Arroyo did not immediately respond to a text message seeking comment.

Moscovitch held four hearings in person from September 30 to October 7 and three by video from October 10 to 16.

“While these types of gifts are common in the entertainment industry, under MLBPA regulations, agents and agencies are simply not allowed to offer them to non-clients,” she said .

Arroyo’s clients included Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez and teammate Ronny Mauricio.

“If it is true, as the MLBPA claims, that Mr. Arroyo violated the rules by failing to supervise uncertified personnel during player recruitment, he was put in this position by his employers,” Moscovitch wrote . “The settlement holds him vicariously liable for the actions of the agency’s uncertified personnel. The reality is that he found himself in an impossible position: regulations impose supervisory power on him over all uncertified Rimas agents, but in reality, he was their subordinate, with no authority over anyone.

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