AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 16 (UPI) — Cyclist Lance Armstrong has been ordered by a Texas court to pay $10 million to insurer SCA Promotions Inc. for lying under oath about doping.
The company sued after paying his bonuses for his Tour de France wins. In 2004, Armstrong sued the company for breach of contract after they withheld his Tour de France bonus after suspecting him of cheating.
While the case was in court in 2005, SCA Promotions attorney Jeffrey Tillotson asked him if he was using performance-enhancing drugs.
“I race the bike straight up fair and square,” he replied under oath.
At the time, SCA was it would lose its case and settled out of court by paying Armstrong $7.5 million. However, when Armstrong fell from grace in 2012 after being stripped of all his tour titles and later admitting he was doping, SCA sued him for fraud and asked that he repay more than $12 million in bonuses.
The arbitration panel ruled 2-1 in favor of SCA, saying Armstrong’s “deception demands real, meaningful sanctions.”
“We are very pleased with this result,” SCA’s president and founder Bob Hamman said in a statement. “It is hard to describe how much harm Lance Armstrong’s web of lies caused SCA, but this is a good first start toward repairing that damage.”
The one dissenting opinion called the sanction, “an unwarranted, unlawful reversal.”
“This award is unprecedented,” Armstrong’s attorney, Tim Herman, told USA Today. “No court or arbitrator has ever reopened a matter which was fully and finally settled voluntarily. In this matter, SCA repeatedly affirmed that it never relied upon anything Armstrong said or did in deciding to settle” in 2006.
Comment count on this article reflects comments made on Breitbart.com and Facebook. Visit Breitbart's Facebook Page.