Reynolds Scores a Court Victory : Track and field: Mobil is ordered to turn over almost $700,000 IAAF sponsorship fee to quarter-miler.

Instead of submitting its next payment of almost $700,000 to the International Amateur Athletic Federation, one of the track and field governing body’s major sponsors, Mobil Corporation, must pay the money to quarter-miler Butch Reynolds, a federal judge in Alexandria, Va., ruled Friday.

“This is great,” said Reynolds’ lawyer, Mimi Dane of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, after the victory in her initial action aimed at collecting a $27.3-million judgment against the IAAF.

“We’re going to go after every (IAAF) sponsor and do whatever it takes, for however long it takes, to collect every penny that Butch is owed.”

Judge W. Curtis Sewall ordered the money from Mobil placed in an interest-bearing account held by the U.S. District Court of Eastern Virginia pending an appeal by the IAAF.

Reynolds, the world record-holder in the 400 meters, sued the IAAF after beginning a 28-month suspension in 1990 for failing a test for an anabolic steroid. Claiming innocence, he questioned the validity of the test.

Last December, a federal judge in Reynolds’ hometown of Columbus, Ohio, ruled in his favor, ordering the IAAF to pay $27.3 million in damages and penalties. Challenging the U.S. court’s jurisdiction over the London-based IAAF, the federation has refused to pay.

As a result, Reynolds’ lawyers began garnishment proceedings, targeting the IAAF’s U.S.-based sponsors, including Mobil. Another, Mars, escaped judgment Friday, arguing that its sponsorship agreement was entered into by its subsidiary in the United Kingdom.

Mobil, which sponsors Grand Prix circuits indoors for USA Track & Field and outdoors for the IAAF, was under contract to pay $691,667 to the IAAF for this year’s most recent financial quarter. Dane said that she will return to the Virginia court in 90 days to seek garnishment of the IAAF’s payments from Mobil and Mars for the next quarter.

She said that she also has begun action in an Ohio court to garnish IAAF payments from two other sponsors, Coca Cola and Reebok, and USATF, the national governing body for track and field.