Fans watch from The Black Hole end zone at Oakland Alameda County Coliseum during the first half of an NFL football game between the Oakland Raiders and the Dallas Cowboys in Oakland on Dec. 17, 2017. AP Photo: Ben Margot

Lawyers for the City of Oakland are crying foul that antitrust lawyers at the Department of Justice are attempting to back the National Football League in the city's lawsuit over the Raiders' upcoming relocation to Las Vegas.

The city sued the Raiders, the NFL and its remaining 31 teams late last year claiming that they conspired to “boycott” Oakland in violation of federal antitrust laws and in breach of the league's own relocation policies in signing off on the team's move to Las Vegas. In particular, the city claims the $378 million “relocation fee” that the team paid to the league's other team owners acted as “supra-competitive cartel payments.”

Lawyers from the DOJ's Antitrust Division on July 12 filed a “statement of interest” in the case on behalf of the United States taking something of a rooting position for the teams over the city. The DOJ lawyers contend that lost tax revenues—which the city alleges are at stake—don't constitute an injury to “business or property” recoverable under the Clayton Act.

“ Such expansive recovery would be contrary to the language of the statute and to precedent, and could lead to anticompetitive effects from over-deterrence,” wrote the Antitrust Division lawyers. The DOJ lawyers also contend that tax losses alone are not a proper basis for standing under the antitrust laws since those losses are “derivative of the harm to market participants who miss out on welfare-enhancing transactions.”

The government lawyers are asking U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero, who is overseeing the case, to dismiss the city's claims brought under Section 4 of the Clayton Act ”to the extent they are based on lost tax revenues.” They are not, however, taking a position regarding the city's other allegations or theories in the case.

The city's lawyers at Berg & Androphy and Pearson, Simon & Warshaw and in the City Attorney's office Monday fired back with an objection claiming that the federal government had no interest at stake in the lawsuit and that the Antitrust Division filing came too late in the game. The city's filing noted that the DOJ asked to weigh in just a week before the NFL's motion to dismiss the case is set to be argued before Spero—nearly three months after briefing on that motion closed. (The Raiders are represented by counsel from Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer in the case and Covington & Burling represents the league and its remaining teams.)

“The DOJ's position would allow professional sports teams, like the Oakland Raiders, to reap the taxpayer-financed benefits derived from the prospects of tax revenues, but then claim immunity from liability when their unlawful conduct injures the host cities that provided those benefits,” the city's lawyers wrote. “A blanket rule that a host city could not recover lost tax revenues would provide professional sports teams with a huge anti-competitive advantage, and an incentive to violate the antitrust laws that much more.”

DOJ representatives didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pearson Simon's Michael Pearson wasn't immediately available for comment Tuesday afternoon.

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