Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling will sign off on the proposed $2 billion sale of the team to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and will drop the lawsuit he filed against the NBA alleging he was forced being forced to unload the franchise, his attorney said Wednesday.
Sterling filed a $1 billion lawsuit in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles last week, alleging breach of contract and anti-trust and civil rights violations by the NBA, which has banned him from the league for life and fined him $2.5 million over racially charged remarks he made in a recorded conversation with companion V. Stiviano.
But his attorney, Max Blecher, said Wednesday Sterling will sign off on the sale, telling NBC News that the embattled Clippers owner had resolved all issues with the NBA.
The league still must approve the sale of the team to Ballmer. A timeframe for that approval process was not immediately known.
On Friday, the same day Sterling filed his lawsuit, the NBA announced that it has resolved ownership questions surrounding the team and it canceled a planned vote by the league’s Board of Governors on whether Sterling should be ousted as an owner.
According to the NBA, the league and the Sterling Family Trust—the formal owner of the Clippers—had reached an agreement under which the trust and Sterling’s wife, Shelly, agreed not to sue the league. Under the agreement, the trust also agreed to indemnify the NBA against “lawsuits from others, including from Donald Sterling.”
In essence, the agreement meant that the Sterling Family Trust would have to cover any damages incurred by the NBA in Sterling’s lawsuit.
