Nassar victims reach $380 million settlement with USA Gymnastics and US Olympic and Paralympic Committee

The announcement comes after years of wrangling and a late commitment by the sports organisations’ insurers to fund the agreement.

US Olympic gymnasts Aly Raisman, Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and Maggie Nichols at a Senate judiciary hearing about the Inspector General's report on the FBI handling of the Larry Nassar investigation of sexual abuse of Olympic gymnasts in September. Picture: AFP

USA Gymnastics, US Olympic & Paralympic Committee and their insurers have agreed to fund a $US380 million ($532 million) settlement with victims of longtime national team physician Larry Nassar, drawing to a close a five-year legal battle that has up-ended American Olympic sports governance.

The sum is among the largest ever recorded for victims of sex abuse and includes hundreds of athletes who were assaulted over three decades. The decision by the final holdout insurer, TIG Insurance Company, to pay a substantial share of the settlement was confirmed on Monday in a hearing in bankruptcy court in Indianapolis. The settlement also includes a direct contribution from the USOPC of around $US34 million ($48 million) and a $US6 million ($8 million) loan from the USOPC to USA Gymnastics to contribute, as well.

The settlement will include claims from Olympic gold medallists such as Simone Biles, Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney, who were treated by Nassar during his time as the US women’s squad doctor. It also includes gymnasts competing for local clubs who sought treatment from Nassar on the strength of his national reputation, and a handful of victims of abusive coaches who had been pursuing claims against the sport’s governing bodies.

It also contains non-monetary provisions, including requirements for self-identified survivors of abuse in gymnastics to have official roles in USA Gymnastics.

A lawsuit against USA Gymnastics and the USOPC over Nassar was filed in September 2016 by 2000 Olympic bronze medallist Jamie Dantzscher. As additional legal claims poured in, USA Gymnastics filed for bankruptcy in late 2018. By then, outrage at a slew of revelations over the Olympic movement’s response to Nassar had already contributed to the resignation of many of the top officials at USA Gymnastics and the USOPC, including the leaders of both organisations, Steve Penny and Scott Blackmun.

It still took three more years to reach a settlement, during which time some of the sport’s biggest stars launched a wave of criticism of the organisations they had competed for – in interviews, on social media and in the fall of 2021, in a televised US Senate hearing. The hearing was followed by a call on Congress to unseat the USOPC board over the matter, drawing on new oversight powers that federal lawmakers had voted to obtain in 2020.

TIG had not agreed to its contribution on behalf of the USOPC even after victims voted in favour of the proposed agreement in late November. A late filing from the Department of Justice opposing the release of the USOPC from claims against it as part of the bankruptcy was seen by leaders of the survivors committee as potentially unlocking the dispute. The survivors committee is now expected to agree to the release of the USOPC.

The settlement, once finalised, will almost certainly allow USA Gymnastics to emerge from the bankruptcy process remaining the governing body of the sport, under its new set of leaders. The end of the bankruptcy is expected to give the organisation a more solid future, boosting its rebuilding efforts with prospective sponsors in particular. The USOPC, under new leadership and with a renewed public focus on anti-abuse efforts, will also be looking ahead to a time in which it is not regularly the focus of gymnasts’ condemnation, even as it continues to face claims relating to problems in other national governing bodies. A wide-ranging federal law enforcement investigation into misconduct in the Olympic movement is believed to be ongoing.

The Wall Street Journal