Campaign for FIDE President Heats up Middle East

Source: The United States Chess Federation

By GM Maxim Dlugy

August 5, 2010

Anatoly Karpov and Sulaiman Al Fahim DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Today a major FIDE Presidential campaign event took place in the United Arab Emirates. Anatoly Karpov met with UAE chess federation president Dr. Sulaiman Al Fahim to discuss the future of chess in the region - and of course the FIDE presidential election at the end of September. You can read the official press release, so I will give the basic facts quickly: The UAE has pledged its support for Karpov; Sulaiman Al Fahim will have a VP position in the new FIDE; $80,000/yr in chess development funds will go to the region in Karpov's first term. Things were made more interesting by the sudden arrival of incumbent FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who, despite frequently stating that the election is all but over in his favor, was clearly desperate to disrupt any agreement between the 12th world champion and the influential Arab nation. Dr. Sulaiman Al Fahim is a businessman and sports patron of great reputation and having him on Karpov's side is sure to be a huge asset, and not only in the Middle East and Asia. Kirsan nearly swept the region in the last election, but his former supporters have gotten tired of his empty promises and here they left him holding the bag at his own press conference without the presence of UAE Federation. The UAE Federation offices are located just across the street from the Dubai Chess Club where Kirsan was planning to have his own press conference - to which he flew four days earlier than planned upon hearing the news of Karpov's pending UAE support. Dr. Suleiman Al Fahim did not think it necessary to tell Kirsan in person that he no longer supports him, as he had told him numerous times on the phone. Kirsan could not believe it and kept asking his assistant Berek to repeatedly call in a last-ditch effort to change the mind of the head of this prominent Arab Chess Federation. It did not work. It looks like the remembrance of old promises is the best Kirsan has to dole out, as between election years hardly any of his promises have been kept. Bessel Kok received 54 votes four years ago based on a number of Federations desiring change. Four more years of wasted time and funds squandered on such efforts as Global Chess has given Karpov's campaign the needed momentum to bring FIDE into the hands of chess players. Today's shock for Kirsan is a victory for players that want to see real corporate sponsorship in the game of chess. I am happy to have witnessed it in person. GM Maxim Dlugy GM Max Dlugy is a former World Junior Champion and former president of the United States Chess Federation. He was in Dubai on behalf of the Karpov2010 campaign. The USCF endorses Karpov for FIDE president.

Some Claims in Lawsuit Against USCF Are Dismissed; Others Are Still Pending

Source: Gambit - The New York Times Chess Blog February 20, 2009, 12:35 pm By Dylan Loeb McClain Some claims in a Texas lawsuit against the United States Chess Federation, some of its officials and other members of the federation have been dismissed, but other claims remain. The lawsuit by Susan Polgar, a member of the federation’s board, arose out of a dispute that began in 2007 when Samuel H. Sloan, a former member of the board, filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Manhattan accusing Ms. Polgar and her husband, Paul Truong, who is also on the board, of posting nasty remarks on the Internet in Mr. Sloan’s name. Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong have denied being the authors of the postings. Mr. Sloan based his suit on a report posted on the federation’s internal discussion forum saying that the person who had posted the items attributed to Mr. Sloan was almost certainly Mr. Truong. The report was written by Brian Mottershead, a systems administrator for the federation. In addition to Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong, Mr. Sloan’s suit named the federation, other members of the board and other members of the federation as defendants. The suit was dismissed last August by Judge Denny Chin who ruled that the court lacked “subject matter jurisdiction.” While Mr. Sloan’s suit was pending, the federation hired Karl S. Kronenberger, a San Francisco attorney, to look into Mr. Sloan’s allegations. Mr. Kronenberger concluded that Mr. Truong was the author of the postings and reported his findings at a federation meeting last August. In December, the federation filed a lawsuit in the Seventh Judicial Circuit Court in Illinois seeking the removal of Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong from the board. Ms. Polgar’s lawyer, Whitney Leigh, said that the lawsuit should be thrown out because it was not authorized by the full board, on which Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong still sit. Ms. Polgar brought her suit in the United States District Court in Lubbock, Texas, where she lives, last August. In it, she claimed libel, slander, defamation, business disparagement, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligence, civil conspiracy, and breach of fiduciary duty, among other things. Thursday, Judge Sam R. Cummings dismissed all claims of negligence and infliction of emotional distress against all defendants. He also ruled that Ms. Polgar must file an amended complaint by March 16 stipulating why the Texas court has jurisdiction over several defendants, including Mr. Mottershead, Brian Lafferty, a federation member who is running for the board, Hal Bogner, a systems administrator for the federation, and ChessMagnetSchool, Mr. Bogner’s company. (The New York Times uses an interactive chess board on its Gambit chess blog that was developed by ChessMagnetSchool.) In a telephone interview Friday, James L. Killion, Ms. Polgar’s attorney, said, “All of the main claims remain intact and of course we are going to pursue those.” He added that on the jurisdictional matter, “We reasonably believe that we can provide the court with ample pleadings to sustain those causes of action.” In an E-mail message, Mr. Lafferty wrote, “Judge Cummings’ decision today in Lubbock, Tex., was a partial win for the U.S.C.F. and most of the defendants. Unfortunately, it means continued and increasing legal expenses that the U.S.C.F., as a struggling non-profit organization, can ill afford.”

U.S. Chess Federation Seeks to Oust 2 Board Members

Source: By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN

Published: January 3, 2009[1]

Chess may be genteel, but a rift among the board members of the United States Chess Federation, the game’s governing body, has led to a series of lawsuits that has all the bad blood of a professional wrestling rivalry. The cases involve sexually explicit Web postings, accusations of stolen e-mail messages and allegations of harassment and slander.

In the latest twist, the federation filed a lawsuit last week in the Seventh Judicial Circuit Court in Illinois seeking the removal of Susan Polgar and Paul Truong, who are married, from its board.

The suit says that Ms. Polgar stole e-mail messages between board members and a lawyer hired by the federation. It also says that Mr. Truong posted obscene and defamatory messages on the Internet about members of the federation, and that he misrepresented his business background when he ran for the board last year. As evidence, the lawsuit includes a personal bankruptcy filing by Mr. Truong from June 2007, just before he and Ms. Polgar were elected.

Ms. Polgar’s lawyer, Whitney Leigh, said on Friday that the lawsuit should be thrown out because it was not authorized by the full board, on which Ms. Polgar and her husband still sit.

The dispute began in October 2007 when Samuel H. Sloan, a former board member, filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Manhattan that accused Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong of writing the obscene and defamatory Internet messages, many of which were posted using Mr. Sloan’s name.

Among the tamer postings was one advertising the sale of a bogus sexually explicit DVD of Mr. Sloan’s wife. Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong have denied writing the postings.

Mr. Sloan, who said the postings were meant to ensure his defeat when he ran for re-election to the board in 2007, also named the federation as a defendant. His lawsuit was dismissed in August by Judge Denny Chin, who ruled that the court lacked “subject matter jurisdiction.” Mr. Sloan, who lost his re-election bid, has appealed.

Before the suit was dismissed, the federation hired Karl S. Kronenberger, a San Francisco lawyer, to look into the claims that Mr. Truong had made the postings.

In late June, Ms. Polgar, in e-mail messages to the board and on a chess forum Web site, quoted from confidential e-mail messages between Mr. Kronenberger and a litigation subcommittee set up by the federation. In one message, posted on several Web sites, Mr. Kronenberger outlined strategies that included ways to persuade Mr. Truong to resign. Both Mr. Truong and Ms. Polgar have denied intercepting federation e-mail messages.

Mr. Kronenberger has said that he asked Ms. Polgar how she had seen the e-mail messages, and that she declined to answer. Ms. Polgar said in an interview in August that “the messages were public knowledge; they were on the Internet.”

On June 25, the federation, contending that the e-mail messages had been stolen, filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court seeking subpoenas to force Internet service providers to turn over the protocol addresses that had been used to gain access to the board’s e-mail accounts.

Based on the responses it received to the subpoenas, the federation amended its lawsuit in October, naming as defendants Ms. Polgar and Gregory Alexander, who has managed Ms. Polgar’s chess discussion Web site. The federation sought an injunction to stop the two from unlawfully accessing e-mail accounts of the federation and its employees.

In August, Ms. Polgar filed a lawsuit in Lubbock, Tex., where she lives, against the federation, four of its board members and other members of the federation, claiming libel, slander and “business disparagement.”

In the filing last week, the federation included information supplied by United Online, an Internet service provider, that listed a Paul Truong as the account holder of the protocol addresses used to create some of the obscene postings.

In an e-mail message on Friday about the dispute, Mr. Truong said: “Not much I can say other than it is the same group which conspires to libel and defame Susan for their political gains. We will be vindicated in court.”

[1] A version of this article appeared in print on January 4, 2009, on page A22 of the New York edition.