Rays minority owners sue principal owner over ‘fraudulent transfer,’ other claims

The plaintiffs have alleged in multiple lawsuits that Sternberg transferred the Rays into a different business entity, Rays Baseball Club, without their knowledge. In March 2021, the same five owners — Robert Kleinert, Gary Markel, the MacDougald Family Limited Partnership, Stephen M. Waters and a trust in Waters’ name — filed a lawsuit that alleged a “scheme to squeeze out the limited partners” starting in 2004. The group owns about 9.6 percent of the Rays.

All counts in the original lawsuit but one, a request to expel Sternberg as general partner, were sent by the judge to arbitration. In May, in an attempt to dismiss that count, lawyers for Sternberg argued that the minority owners’ complaints “amount to nothing more than the personal grievances of limited partners.”

A second lawsuit, filed in February, alleged the partners had been provided with documents “with obviously altered dates” and had not been provided some documents at all…

The newest lawsuit alleges that Sternberg did not disclose that a $376 million payment from the team’s regional sports network, Fox Sports Sun (now known as Bally Sports Sun), had been received after the ownership of the team and had been transferred into the new entity.