The lawsuit between Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia and two Suns minority owners is heading to a confidential binding mediation, which could lead to Ishiba buying out the minority owners’ 13% stake at a price determined by a mediator, according to a new court filing obtained by ESPN.
The agreed-upon stipulation by both parties was filed Monday in Delaware State Court, and it will ultimately lead to the lawsuit being jointly dismissed.
Previously, the lawsuit, which was filed by attorneys representing Scott Seldin and Andy Kohlberg in November 2025, escalated to the point that an attorney representing them said Ishbia’s majority stake in the franchise could be threatened, with control potentially shifting to Seldin and Kohlberg.
Now, Ishbia is in position to buy them out, which would remove the final two members of the ownership group who were holdovers from the previous Suns regime under Robert Sarver. After buying their shares, Ishbia stands to increase his majority ownership stake to about 96%.
A representative for Ishbia declined comment. A source familiar with the matter said that Ishbia was in extensive conversations with Seldin and Kohlberg about buying out their shares prior to the litigation and that it was always his goal to buy out the limited partners.
Seldin and Kohlberg are represented by Michael Carlinsky of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. Carlinsky declined comment on the latest development that follows a series of lawsuits and legal maneuvers, the last of which led him to say that Ishbia’s stake in the Suns was in jeopardy of being diluted from 83.2% to 32.7%.
Ishbia bought the Suns in 2023 from Sarver following an NBA investigation into Sarver’s conduct and the team’s workplace culture.
At the time of Sarver’s 2023 sale to Ishbia, 14 of the 16 partners in the Suns’ ownership group accepted Ishbia’s buyout offer at a $4 billion valuation. Seldin and Kohlberg didn’t sell.
A year later, in September 2024, Kohlberg began negotiating a buyout with an adviser to Ishbia. Seldin, meanwhile, didn’t seek a buyout. Kohlberg’s talks continued into 2025. His attorneys say that Ishbia held a $250 million capital call raise — in which investors are asked to make actual payments on their financial commitments — on June 2, 2025 and “threatened the minority owners with a punitive dilution of their ownership interests” if they failed to fund it in 10 days.
According to a previous court filing, Ishbia said the capital call raise wasn’t fully funded and set up another capital call raise on July 8, 2025, with another 10-day deadline.
In both instances, Seldin and Kohlberg said they paid their portion of the capital call raise. The two then filed a lawsuit in August 2025 against Ishbia to obtain internal financial records. Days later, the Suns sent a letter to Kohlberg and Seldin, saying the two men demanded the Suns buy their ownership share for $825 million, a figure that would put the team’s value at about $6 billion — a 60% increase from the value when Ishbia purchased the team in 2023. The Suns said in the letter, obtained by ESPN, that they had no obligation to buy out Seldin and Kohlberg.
Ishbia countersued the two Suns minority owners in October 2025, saying they insisted he buy out their ownership shares “at an exorbitant premium.”
After eventually getting access to the team’s books, Seldin and Kohlberg said they learned that Ishbia had failed to fund both capital call raises by the deadlines he set.
One month later, in November 2025, Seldin and Kohlberg sued Ishbia a second time, accusing him of financial misconduct, including using the team as a “personal piggy bank,” which Ishbia has denied.
Seldin and Kohlberg have said that, under the terms of the team’s operating agreement, they should have been able to buy the shares Ishbia failed to fund, potentially giving them a 60% stake.
The November 2025 lawsuit from Seldin and Kohlberg marks the seventh against the Suns since November 2024. Others have been filed by current or former employees. Some of their allegations include discrimination, retaliation, harassment and wrongful termination.
The Suns, who are 39-28 entering Monday’s game at Boston, have denied those allegations.
