Maybe Truly Collusion Worthy of a Veto?

[Invictus]

The rule that trades can’t contain future considerations is definitely relevant so good you edited to include that.

Upon the GMs response (you provided) they clearly made the first trade with the future consideration of trading back, breaking (not circumventing) this rule. No other rules are in place or being broken.

Punishment should be fitting of breaking one rule… which maybe you have precedent on that? Possible league GMs could weigh in. I do like a trade restriction between the two teams for a set amount of time.

[chuckcouples]

The GMs cheated to gain an advantage for themselves and should be punished accordingly. They knew what they were doing was shady when they first did it and they tried to hide it which makes it even worse.

[Referee3083]

In case anyone is interested, both GMs were informed today that the trade was being vetoed by me (along with input from several GMs in the league), with an extensive write up of how it was a circumvention and violation of our rules. Both GMs admitted they were attempting to get around the IR limit and went afoul of the rules.

The punishment was vetoing Trade 2 but keeping Trade 1 intact. As far as why not reversing Trade 1. There's a secondary issue that from Feb 2 - Mar 3, Team B effectively had one more roster spot available then all other teams in the league. If Trade 1 is reversed, then that does not fix the issue that the integrity of the matchups during the month between Trade 1 and Trade 2 could have been impacted (because Team B had the ability to add an additional player and had more flexibility within players on its roster). Whether or not that actually did impact any results is was not considered as it's incredibly difficult to quantify or unwind at this point. Trade 1 staying in place keeps the integrity of the results since the roster flexibility gained on Feb 2 forward was real due to having moved a player for a pick.

The GMs have also accepted that they are not allowed to trade with each other until after next year’s draft and that they cannot use other teams to facilitate trades to move Caufield or picks between them.

I’ve repped as much as I could throughout this thread, even to those posters who did not agree with this position. I appreciated all the views brought here and the good debate.

[bbfl1987]

This is unorthodox, I’ll give you that. I wouldn’t have a problem with it though if I were commish.

[tweetdrivr]

Given all the data I’d say no trade veto but the team that got the extra roster spot for a month is barred from the playoffs this year since he’s admitted he knew he cheated to get there.

[Wotan]

There are always positive words and negative ones to describe the same thing. These deals could be called shady, cheating, etc. or they could be called shrewd, creative and so on.

To me this is ok. If nothing in the rules forbids it, it's allowed. If that's not the idea, the rules have to be adapted. Sure, these GMs could have asked beforehand, etc., but I'd take the high road here as the commish...

[Stanley]

Just repeating that I agree with many here who think this is not collusion and no action should be taken, possibly other than a rule to ensure all conditions of a trade are communicated transparently to avoid the perception of collusion.

However the only opinions that really matter are the GMs that are in the league.

As the commish, you wanna be very sure that all your GMs really do think this is bad and don't want trades like this to be allowed in the future, vs just sour grapes that they didn't think of it first.

[Bag Skate]

Rule option: if you trade a player away during the season, you can't get that player back via trade until.. end of season.. or start of next season

We have rule in my league that you can’t obtain the same player back in a trade with the same GM for a period of 9 weekly matchups (football) but this would work for H2H hockey weeks as well. Those 9 weekly matchups could overlap seasons also. It eliminates the rental issue.