Arbitration panel rules Lance Armstrong owes Dallas sports promotions company $10 million

For two years Lance Armstrong has tried to stop a Dallas arbitration panel from revisiting a decade-old settlement that paid him millions in prize money. But according to documents made public this morning, he lost that race.

On February 4 two members of a three-man arbitration panel ruled that the Oak Cliff-born, Plano-raised Armstrong must repay a Dallas-based sports promotions company $10 million in prize money he received for having won the Tour de France in 2002, 2003 and 2004. The only member of the panel to disagree was the attorney appointed to the panel by Armstrong and Tailwind Sports, which owned the U.S. Postal Service team for which Armstrong race. Tailwind’s also on the hook for the $10 million, according to the panel’s ruling.

The panel’s ruling “was a great relief to the client and to me,” says Dallas attorney Jeffrey Tillotson, who is now the only person to have twice interviewed the disgraced cyclist under oath. “This is much deserved.” The panel’s ruling was made public today after Tillotson asked a Dallas state district court to convert the panel’s award into a final judgement.

SCA Promotions never wanted to pay Armstrong the money in the first place. It paid Armstrong millions in 2002 and ’03, but after he won the 2004 Tour, rumors ran rampant that the cyclist had been doping. In November 2005, Tillotson went to Austin to depose Armstrong, who vehemently denied being a cheater. In 2006, after it became clear SCA wasn’t going to prove the allegations, it cut a deal with Armstrong and Tailwind and settled for $7.5 million.

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