ShareDoug Polk and Fernando “JNandez” Habegger have been slugging away on Twitter again in the latest round of hostilities following their very public conflict which erupted in 2018. Polk’s legal team has threatened JNandez, reminding him that a confidentiality clause is still active in his contract.
JNandez left Polk’s Upswing Poker team in 2018, taking advantage of a release clause in his contract. Polk responded by launching a tirade of accusations against him, accusing him of planning to steal Upswing Poker’s customers to start his own site, even claiming that he had failed to pay an old woman who had knitted scarves with the JNandez logo.
Polk’s legal team then filed a lawsuit against Habegger, claiming that he had breached his contract. Although Jnandez’s counterclaim for defamation was thrown out by the judge, he was awarded a sum of around $150K.
Not much was said about the case in the last couple of years but when Charlie Carrel opened the can of worms, everyone was talking about it again.
Jnandez then decided to release the details of his win, as well as the “smear campaign” he had been subjected to by Polk. He recently appeared on Matt Berkey’s Only Friends podcast to discuss the matter, which led to Polk’s lawyers making legal threats against him over the still active confidentiality clause even though Polk himself hasn’t been shy to air his views on the matter in recent weeks.
The poker community looks to be divided on this issue, with some ing Polk and others ing Jnandez. Regardless of who is ultimately deemed to be in the right, it is clear that this conflict is damaging for both parties. It remains to be seen whether the legal threats from Polk’s team will have any impact on JNandez being able to respond to Polk’s own statements on social media.
