In an update on the lawsuit filed by TNA Wrestling’s former production company Audience of One Productions against TNA’s parent company IMPACT Ventures LLC, TNA minority owners Aroluxe LLC, TNA Chief Financial Officer Dean Broadhead and Ronald Dean Harris on September 27th in the United States District Court Eastern District of Virginia, a report from PWInsider.com notes that on December 6th, attorneys representing Harris and Aroluxe filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that the suit being filed in Virginia, where Audience of One is headquartered, meant that the Court lacked jurisdiction over either party, with Harris noting that he was not a party to the agreement between TNA and Audience of One and is a resident of Tennessee, while Aroluxe’s Jason Brown also stated that the company is not headquartered in Virginia, does not do regular business in the State and does not make significant money based on their business in the State.

The report goes on to note that Harris and Aroluxe’s lawyers are also arguing that under Virginia law, Audience of One is failing to produce evidence that there was a conspiracy to defraud the company and that since there is no evidence of this, that the court cannot allow a plaintiff to establish jurisdiction over a non-resident defendant by simply pleading bare allegations of a business conspiracy and are also arguing that any dispute between the parties did not originate in the State of Virginia, which means that having the case heard there is meaningless. For those unfamiliar with the whole story, the lawsuit alleges that TNA’s CFO Dean Broadhead, Aroluxe and Ron Harris all worked together to get Audience of One on board as a production company under the false pretence of using them full-time, but then failed to pay them in a timely manner for work done, instead setting up a payment plan and then stopped paying after the initial payment was made, with Audience of One seeking $223,000 plus interest and post-judgment costs for breach of contract, fraudulent inducement on the behalf of Harris and Broadhead, torturous interference on behalf of Aroluxe and for the defendants violating Virginia code.

Meanwhile, the report notes that on December 20th, Audience of One Productions responded and argued against the motion to dismiss and argue that since they are headquartered in Virginia and that the economic damage of the issues wth TNA paying them for their services took place in Virginia, it is the right venue for the case to be heard. Aroluxe and Harris have also denied that there is a relationship between the two and that Ron Harris had not been employed by Aroluxe, however Audience of One have filed material with the court showing that both Ron and his brother Don Harris were featured executives on the Aroluxe website’s team section until after the Audience of One lawsuit was filed and stated that Harris had responded to the group e-mails using an @aroluxe.com e-mail address, as well as a @TNAWrestling.com e-mail address and agreed that it is possible that Harris was an independent contract working with Aroluxe at the time.

A hearing on the jurisdiction matter has been set for February 3rd, 2017 at 10am in Richmond Courtroom 6300 before District Judge Henry E. Hudson, who is presiding over the case. Judge Hudson had attempted to send the two sides to mediation in an attempt to work out a settlement, but all of that has been paused until a ruling is made on whether the lawsuit has been filed in the wrong venue and if it is tossed out, it is expected that Audience of One will re-file in Tennessee.