In a blow to Hans Niemann, judge Audrey Fleissig threw out his $100 million lawsuit against Grand Master and five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen, Grand Master Hikaru Nakamura, International Master and Chief chess officer of Chess.com Daniel Rensch, Chess.com and Play Magnus Group.
A failed lawsuit
In a lawsuit filed on 20th October 2022, Hans alleged that the mentioned GMs, IM and companies were trying to defame him. The lawsuit sued them for slander, libel, unlawful group boycott under the Sherman Act, tortious interference with contract and business expectancies, and civil conspiracy. Thus, he claimed a minimum compensation of $100 million.
In the lawsuit, Niemann portrayed a conspiracy between the online chess platform Chess.com and Magnus Carlsen to stop Hans Niemann from playing chess at the elite level. The lawsuit was amended twice over the past eight months, but he failed to convince the judge to move to a jury trial.
In her judgement, the judge noted that charges regarding a possible anti-trust injury were dismissed with prejudice. Hence, those charges cannot be brought back even if Hans appeals in another court.
Meanwhile, all the other charges were dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, including Hans’s claim that he was blacklisted from tournaments.
According to reports, Hans’s attorney plans to file a defamation case in state court after getting dismissed from the district court.
A streak broken, and a controversy started.
It all started when 32-year-old Magnus faced 20-year-old Hans in the third round of the 2022 Sinquefield Cup. Before the match, Magnus was on a 53-game winning streak but lost to Hans in that match, much to the surprise of many.
After the game, Magnus took to Twitter to inform that he had withdrawn from the tournament and attached a quote from a famous football manager, Jose Mourinho, “I prefer not to speak. If I speak, I am in big trouble”.
This created a sensation in the chess world as it soon became apparent that Magnus was accusing Hans of cheating. However, the big question was how. Magnus presented no proof as to what and how it happened.
Cheating in 100 games?
In an interview during the same tournament, Hans admitted that he had earlier cheated when he was 12 and 16 years old while playing on Chess.com. Due to this, Chess.com did an internal investigation and published a 72-page report, which made a sensational claim that Hans had likely cheated in more than 100 online chess games between July 2015 and August 2020, “including several with prize money events.”
However, Niemann has denied these allegations and said he never cheated more than he admitted to or in any games over the board. Hence, Hans filed a lawsuit in response to all the allegations against him.
With serious allegations being levelled among players, the governing body of chess. The International Chess Federation, known as FIDE, launched its investigation and completed the findings in February. They initially said the investigation report would be published by April. However, FIDE later retracted the statement and said the report would be delayed until October.
Hans has continued to play chess and is currently ranked No.36 globally. Meanwhile, Magnus Carlsen, considered by many as the greatest Chess player of all time, continues to be the world’s No.1 player.
