Lance Armstrong has been ordered by an arbitration panel in Texas to pay a $10 million sanctions award to SCA Promotions, a Dallas-based sports insurance company who paid him big bonuses for winning multiple Tour de France titles. According to the written ruling, the award punishes the athlete for engaging in “an unparalleled pageant of international perjury, fraud and conspiracy.” It is believed to be the largest such sanction assessed against an individual in American judicial history. Armstrong's attorney said his client would fight in court to have the decision nullified on the basis that the parties reached a final and binding settlement in the case in 2006. The original dispute, which took place in 2005, concerned whether SCA Promotions owed Armstrong bonus payments after he had won a series of Tour de France races. Armstrong swore under oath in that proceeding that he had never used performance-enhancing drugs during his career, leading SCA Promotions to settle the matter for $7.5 million in 2006. Armstrong would later confess, in 2013, that he had cheated during every Tour de France race he had won, and SCA re-convened the arbitration proceeding, seeking to sanction him based on his wrongful conduct.

Topics