SLT is suing Lagree Fitness for at least $50 million. The fight is about Megaformers, the machines every SLT class is built around.
According to the complaint, filed in a California federal court, SLT says Lagree and founder Sebastien Lagree breached licensing agreements going back to 2011. An equipment shortage made the specific Megaformer model SLT uses hard to get. SLT says Lagree then used that shortage as leverage, telling it that new locations would not be supplied unless SLT gave up its exclusive rights in New York City.
Lagree disputes SLT's version of the relationship and denies using supply to pressure anyone. One outlet has reported the complaint so far and we could not locate the docket, so treat the specific allegations as SLT's account rather than settled fact. Inc. has the fullest write-up.
What happens when one supplier controls your core equipment?
You lose the ability to walk away. SLT says Lagree controls the only authorised commercial channel for the model it needs, which makes Lagree a single-source supplier (the only company permitted to sell you a given piece of equipment). A normal vendor dispute ends with you buying elsewhere. When the equipment defines the class, the format and the brand, there is no elsewhere, and the supplier knows the real cost of saying no to you.
This has happened before
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2011 | SLT's licensing arrangement with Lagree begins |
| 2015 | Lagree sues Solidcore over Megaformer licensing; it settles confidentially |
| 2026 | SLT sues Lagree, seeking at least $50 million and the equipment |
The 2015 case is on the public record as Lagree et al v. Spartacus 20th LP, and it also turned on breach of contract over Megaformer licensing. Solidcore went on to build a large business and then dropped the word Pilates from its own marketing, which was partly a move to own its category outright rather than describe itself in someone else's terms.
Read the two cases together and a pattern shows up. The machine is the asset. Whoever owns the right to make it has leverage over everyone whose business runs on it, and that leverage shows up when a studio wants to grow.
Why territory is the thing being fought over
Exclusivity in New York is what lets SLT open a second and third location in the same city without a competitor running identical equipment opening next door. Give it up and the format stops being a moat. Any operator with a supply agreement can run the same class on the same machines in the same neighbourhood.
So the alleged trade was a hard one. Equipment for new studios, in exchange for the protection that made those studios worth opening. SLT says it refused, and is now asking a court for the money and the machines.
The wider squeeze
This lands while reformer equipment is in demand everywhere. Big-box chains have moved in hard, and LA Fitness now runs 200 Pilates studios with reformers bundled into a $79 tier. More buyers chasing the same machines means lead times stretch and suppliers get to choose. A shortage gives whoever holds the manufacturing rights more power than they had a year ago, whatever they choose to do with it.
It also explains why format owners guard licensing so tightly. Pilates has become a business model rather than a class, and in that model the equipment licence is the product.
What this means for you
Go and read your equipment agreement this week. Two questions matter. Does your supplier owe you anything in writing about availability or lead times for new locations? And is your territory protection tied in any way to continuing to buy from them? If the answer to the first is no and the second is yes, your expansion plan depends on goodwill.
Then find out whether a second authorised source exists for your core machines. Sometimes one does and nobody checked. Where it does not, the honest move is to price that risk into your growth plan rather than assume it away.
A court will sort out who is right here. The lesson does not need the verdict. If one company can decide whether you get the machines your classes need, that company is a partner on its own terms, and the time to find that out is before you sign the next lease.