Bisceglia settles with USA Cycling, Ochowicz

By Mark Zalewski, North American Editor

The wrongful termination lawsuit brought by USA Cycling's former CEO Gerard Bisceglia against the organization and the board of directors president at the time, Jim Ochowicz, has been settled out of court, according to court documents obtained by Cyclingnews. In 2006 it was announced by USA Cycling in that Bisceglia "chose to resign" after his annual review. However, a day later Bisceglia contradicted that statement saying, "I was dismissed. No cause given."

Since the filing of the lawsuit in 2006 none of the parties have spoken publicly about the matter. In March of 2007 the court ordered that the parties resolve the matter in third-party arbitration. After a year-and-a-half of arbitration both parties agreed to dismiss the case in October of 2008, with each responsible for their own court costs but no further information regarding the settlement given, such as the monetary compensation asked for in the original lawsuit.

"It is settled to everybody's satisfaction," said N. Dawn Webber, counsel for Ochowicz. "The rest is confidential of course. It was settled out of court in arbitration."

"It was resolved on a mutually agreeable basis," USA Cycling's current CEO Steve Johnson said in a similar fashion.

Bisceglia was not reachable for comment and his lawyer Donna Dell'Olio declined to comment.

The settlement comes around the same time USA Cycling was ordered to pay more than US$300,000 to mountain biker Susan Haywood. USA Cycling is currently appealing the amount of the award in that verdict.