Independent Sports & Entertainment’s bid to block the agency’s former basketball division chief Dan Fegan from competing with the firm was shot down earlier this month when an arbitrator denied its request for a preliminary injunction.

That means Fegan is back in the game – just in time for the National Basketball Association’s summer free-agency period – and actively pursuing business for clients such as the New Orleans Pelicans’ All-Star center DeMarcus Cousins.

“I am obviously pleased with the arbitrator’s ruling and glad to put the threat of the preliminary injunction behind me,” he said. “This allows me to focus all of my energy on representing current and future clients.”

Fegan was fired by Independent Sports & Entertainment, known as ISE, in March. The firm claimed the longtime NBA agent sabotaged its basketball operations and has been battling in state and federal courts – as well as in private arbitration proceedings – to keep Fegan from operating a competing agency business until February of next year.

The arbitrator in the case, George King, the former chief judge of L.A.’s federal court system, denied this request, which Fegan argued would have effectively killed his career. Fegan isn’t fully out from under the shadow of ISE, however. The firm continues to pursue damages claims through arbitration, which could continue the saga until next year.

The agency’s allegations include that Fegan breached his contract and failed in his fiduciary responsibility to ISE. The firm’s lawyer, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher Partner James Fogelman, said in a statement that while Fegan can now compete with ISE, the agent’s inability to quash the case in several venues speaks to the strength of the remaining claims.

“Dan Fegan failed in his attempt in the arbitration to invalidate ISE’s contract in order to avoid liability for his outrageous conduct, just as his similar attempts failed in state and federal court,” Fogelman said. “ISE’s contract is fully enforceable and ISE is seeking damages for Mr. Fegan’s breach of that contract, as it will for any future breach by Mr. Fegan.”

Court battle

Both sides are tight-lipped about what will happen going forward.

Fegan, ISE Chief Executive Hank Ratner and other principals declined to speak on the record – but court filings and declarations submitted by the parties tell at least some of the story of how the split occurred.

Fegan joined ISE in 2013, when the agency was still under Ryan Kavanaugh’s Relativity Media umbrella, taking a $20 million payment offer to bring his practice into the fold.

Fegan’s clients at the time included perennial All-Stars Dwight Howard and John Wall as well as Los Angeles Clippers big man DeAndre Jordan. Things went south, however, as Relativity’s financial situation deteriorated, culminating with the company’s bankruptcy filing in 2015.

Fegan claims in a declaration filed in federal court that he stuck by the agency in the wake of the bankruptcy and stayed onboard when the firm was spun off and rebranded as ISE last June with $30 million in backing from investor Ron Burkle’s Yucaipa Cos. Ratner had been brought in to head the agency shortly before that launch – partly on the recommendation of Fegan.

Any honeymoon period between the pair ended almost immediately, according to both sides’ court filings. Ratner claimed in a declaration filed in federal court that Fegan was recalcitrant in first renegotiating his employment contract and then other contracts for agents in Fegan’s division.

“When I asked Fegan about moving forward with contract negotiations, Fegan told me that it was not in his interests to sign the agents to long-term deals because he wanted to take agents with him in case he left (ISE),” Ratner said in his declaration on March 31. “When I reminded Fegan about his duties to the company, Fegan stated ‘I don’t give a shit about the company.’”

Fegan claimed in his declaration on April 24 that he was bad-mouthing Relativity not ISE, saying Ratner had mischaracterized the conversation.

“What I thought would be a great benefit for ISE and me personally – the hiring of Mr. Ratner as CEO – turned into a corporate and professional nightmare,” Fegan’s declaration reads.

While both sides’ lists of grievances are voluminous, the court filings are short on details. When pressed for specifics about certain claims, representatives for both ISE and Fegan declined to provide more evidence of the opposing parties’ alleged misdeeds, including claims of improper payments made to prospective clients and Amateur Athletic Union basketball programs.

Revenue hit

A document filed in federal court shows a spreadsheet used to calculate Fegan’s compensation, which reveals the agent’s base salary was bumped to $350,000 last year from $225,000 in 2015. He also received a variable compensation award based off a percentage of the total player contract and marketing fees paid to ISE over a set time frame. Fegan’s net award in 2015 was about $129,000, according to the court filing. Projections for 2016, however, estimated his variable compensation could have totaled more than $850,000. Fegan’s representative declined to confirm the accuracy of the compensation numbers.

The compensation formula document also shows ISE’s basketball division generated approximately $6.5 million in 2015 based on its calculations for Fegan’s variable compensation award.

ISE and Fegan will be hard-pressed to bring in similar figures this year as they have both lost significant portions of their clientele. Fegan claimed in his declaration to have lost seven clients since he was fired on March 10.

ISE’s roster of NBA clients has also been pared back dramatically. The company had 32 basketball clients in October 2016. That number has dwindled to 17. Some of the clients now listed by the agency overlap with players Fegan claims to still represent – such as the Pelicans’ Cousins.

A spokeswoman for ISE would not confirm whether the firm represented the players currently listed on its site in both contract negotiations and marketing.

This story has been updated to reflect that Dan Fegan no longer represents Memphis Grizzlies forward Chandler Parsons. Parsons is represented by ISE.