Rangers & SD back in court today

If you think the clubs legal advise was strong,then why are we back up in court once again ? Ashley couldn't take us to court simply because he doesn't like what we're doing,he will have legal issues with what we are doing hense why it's back into court.

I'm sticking by my own theory that those at the club have tried to get one over on him by selling through a 3rd party thinking he can't do anything about it and the club being fed up because both party's just can't come to an agreement and it's now backfired on us.

This has to be resolved one way or another otherwise we will continue to lose plenty in retail sales along with ping pong court dates which will ensue.

I also think Ashley will try and get an injunction to prevent us selling merch/strips until this is resolved,which will once again mean we have a product available which everyone wants to buy,but can't sell it.

There are many occasions when one party takes another to court and the judge disagrees with the point that they are trying to make. You did not need to be Albert Einstein to calculate that Ashley was going to raise a court action. That does not mean that a judge will agree with the point he is trying to make. Remember, he previously raised an action against King and was virtually laughed out of court at the end of it.
 
Not sure of the significance of one Hummel top still being for sale at £999.99. All the rest have been removed, so why leave one ?

The sickner will be that if SD start selling them we will have supporters in the FC’s jumble sale buying them.

I really hope King has stitched him up again.
It seems highly unlikely King has stitched anyone up given our kit is now off the shelves and we are being taken to court by the very guy you think is being stitched up. The legal advisors who gave the legal advice to our board ended up in Ashley taking us to court and walking away with all his legal costs the previous time we tried to go forward with our deal with JD,It will be the same legal advisors who's advice has now seen our goods removed from sale and taken to court again.
 
Sorry but are you not allowed to be critical now,We're about to go to court for the second time in a few months,It could stop the sale of strips dead in it's tracks and back to square one and according to some on this thread,merch is already being pulled from retailers which means retail income for the club will stop until this is resolved.. Sorry for caring.

Caring is fine, but you cannot ignore the fact that Ashley had us by the balls and it's Somners and the likes that put us in this position.
 
We need to do something re the fatman.

Highlight his shops and brands and ensure we don't give him anything.

Spivsdirect.con need to feel a hit of heat.

A huge anti fatty banner prior to each home game would be a start
 
Caring is fine, but you cannot ignore the fact that Ashley had us by the balls and it's Somners and the likes that put us in this position.
I've maintained all along from the beginning that the contract was never in the best interest of the club or the shareholders and found it totally bizarre why this has never been used as a way to rip up the deal.

I'm just completely pissed off with it all.
 
I think that the club's legal advice would be strong and that they would not have embarked on selling kits without feeling that they would be on solid ground when the expected attack came from Ashley. Ashley was always going to contest the situation and following the decision on this case there should be a clear picture one way or other for all concerned.
Hopefully mate.
 
There are no reports of the court case today, so we are mostly guessing? So maybe the judge did order a halt to our merchandise sales with our Non-exclusive partners, for a tempory period till he makes his judgement on this one particular ongoing court case?
 
It seems highly unlikely King has stitched anyone up given our kit is now off the shelves and we are being taken to court by the very guy you think is being stitched up. The legal advisors who gave the legal advice to our board ended up in Ashley taking us to court and walking away with all his legal costs the previous time we tried to go forward with our deal with JD,It will be the same legal advisors who's advice has now seen our goods removed from sale and taken to court again.

I don’t think there is any ‘stitching up’ going on. We effectively ‘lost’ the last case because we ‘withdrew’, accepting that SDI had the right to match any retail deal we had received. Clearly that was not part of any plan, that clause slipping through was a clusterf*ck of huge proportions (though it may have been perceived as the only way to reach agreement to terminate the previous, onerous, contract).

Where we are now is stumbling around in the dark trying to find some way out of this that benefits the Club. The Board decided to go down the direct sales route (using a company with links to Hummel as, effectively, a sub-contractor rather than the ‘non-exclusive partner’ stuff they came out with).

We are back in Court, as I’m sure the Board and everyone on here knew was inevitable. I don’t think either side has a clear idea of how this will pan out. It has to be said though that, after the way the last Court appearance ended, if you were a betting man your money would be on the Fat Man winning.

Fact is, given the ‘matching deal’ clause, we are very much up against it and hoping for a ‘lucky break’ in Court that buys us an escape route. It’s not a great place to be.
 

Thanks Coop1872. I thought that must have been explored but can't believe it wasn't successful. It seems ridiculous that these contracts were not seen for the sham / scam that they were. Surely when compared to other clubs contracts ours must be the worst out there in terms of the percentage profit which the club gets from each sale. As such the contracts have been undersold to benefit the partner rather than the Club.
 
I don’t think there is any ‘stitching up’ going on. We effectively ‘lost’ the last case because we ‘withdrew’, accepting that SDI had the right to match any retail deal we had received. Clearly that was not part of any plan, that clause slipping through was a clusterf*ck of huge proportions (though it may have been perceived as the only way to reach agreement to terminate the previous, onerous, contract).

Where we are now is stumbling around in the dark trying to find some way out of this that benefits the Club. The Board decided to go down the direct sales route (using a company with links to Hummel as, effectively, a sub-contractor rather than the ‘non-exclusive partner’ stuff they came out with).

We are back in Court, as I’m sure the Board and everyone on here knew was inevitable. I don’t think either side has a clear idea of how this will pan out. It has to be said though that, after the way the last Court appearance ended, if you were a betting man your money would be on the Fat Man winning.

Fact is, given the ‘matching deal’ clause, we are very much up against it and hoping for a ‘lucky break’ in Court that buys us an escape route. It’s not a great place to be.

That's a reasoned shout VB, we are trying to find our way out of the clutches of the Fat Man here. We keep digging an escape route on the merchandise contract and he keeps closing them down through the courts, I have no doubt we'll dig our way out eventually. The Great Escape2.
 
This is coming in on the blind side but could not Club1872/Union Bears not produce a football shirt with their logo on it, sell it, and perhaps make a donation to the Club. Of course there must be no collusion between the bodies.

Hummel, I would presume, would sell any colour/any design to anybody.
 
I don’t think there is any ‘stitching up’ going on. We effectively ‘lost’ the last case because we ‘withdrew’, accepting that SDI had the right to match any retail deal we had received. Clearly that was not part of any plan, that clause slipping through was a clusterf*ck of huge proportions (though it may have been perceived as the only way to reach agreement to terminate the previous, onerous, contract).

Where we are now is stumbling around in the dark trying to find some way out of this that benefits the Club. The Board decided to go down the direct sales route (using a company with links to Hummel as, effectively, a sub-contractor rather than the ‘non-exclusive partner’ stuff they came out with).

We are back in Court, as I’m sure the Board and everyone on here knew was inevitable. I don’t think either side has a clear idea of how this will pan out. It has to be said though that, after the way the last Court appearance ended, if you were a betting man your money would be on the Fat Man winning.

Fact is, given the ‘matching deal’ clause, we are very much up against it and hoping for a ‘lucky break’ in Court that buys us an escape route. It’s not a great place to be.

We’re right where SDI wanted/expected us to be. They anticipated being back in court and frankly I think they were aiming for it so they can make the existing clauses that went in their favour even more concrete.

That’s what they were angling for at the last court date, so I fully expect them to seek to have us even more unambiguously under their control via rulings that come out of this round.

They’ll seek to prevent us selling any merchandise meantime and bring us back in to get a judge to add clarification to some of the terms being disputed previously.

I suspect this is precisely the nature of whatever dispute we currently have with the existing terms that we have evidently challenged by moving forward with the Elite deal and it will be the focus of whatever comes next.

Going by form, as you say, I have little confidence our legal advice will be enough to see us get the result we want.
 
Fat arse argued that he had the right to match any deal Rangers got.

Rangers got a deal with JD / Hummel.

Fat arse took his claim to court and won the right to match the deal. The judge told them to sort it out pronto.

Feck all happened. Is this because fat boy hasn't matched the deal yet? Is it because he cannot match the deal (as he cannot bully Hummels price down)

Rangers ran out of patience and went to market. A real life indication to any judge as to the £££ being denied to the club by the stalling tactics.

Sounds like we have presented a decent case to the judge highlighting his disruptive tactics, We will have shifted more kit in 4 weeks than we have in the last 4 years.
 
Sorry but are you not allowed to be critical now,We're about to go to court for the second time in a few months,It could stop the sale of strips dead in it's tracks and back to square one and according to some on this thread,merch is already being pulled from retailers which means retail income for the club will stop until this is resolved.. Sorry for caring.
You're barking up the wrong tree.
Im not saying you don't care but this was never a simple solution. I believe from the night the shirts went on sale recently that it was a move by King to force a position.
 
Fat arse argued that he had the right to match any deal Rangers got.

Rangers got a deal with JD / Hummel.

Fat arse took his claim to court and won the right to match the deal. The judge told them to sort it out pronto.

Feck all happened. Is this because fat boy hasn't matched the deal yet? Is it because he cannot match the deal (as he cannot bully Hummels price down)

Rangers ran out of patience and went to market. A real life indication to any judge as to the £££ being denied to the club by the stalling tactics.

Sounds like we have presented a decent case to the judge highlighting his disruptive tactics, We will have shifted more kit in 4 weeks than we have in the last 4 years.
I think this is exactly the situation. We allowed him to match the deal but hes not willing to do that. Hes trying to restructure the deal in his favour. Hes had his chance to match the deal and he can't. We've been f ck d by the fat toad for the last time.
 
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We need to do something re the fatman.

Highlight his shops and brands and ensure we don't give him anything.

Spivsdirect.con need to feel a hit of heat.

A huge anti fatty banner prior to each home game would be a start
Really don,t think that will bother him in the slighest.
 
It seems highly unlikely King has stitched anyone up given our kit is now off the shelves and we are being taken to court by the very guy you think is being stitched up. The legal advisors who gave the legal advice to our board ended up in Ashley taking us to court and walking away with all his legal costs the previous time we tried to go forward with our deal with JD,It will be the same legal advisors who's advice has now seen our goods removed from sale and taken to court again.

Not quite off the shelves mate. They are still on sale via the official site and the thegersstoreonline.com link

So we are still selling, just not JD.

Let's wait and see before we write the board off on this one
 
Any negativity towards him and his tat brands and antics should be welcome, particularly if cameras from europe and England pick it up
Your right to a point .hes been in front of parliment his working practices have been highlighted on tv and he is still in business and raking money in.
Its not about buiness with him now its personal.hes like the playground bully we,ve stood up to him and he dosn,t like it.
 
Fat arse argued that he had the right to match any deal Rangers got.

Rangers got a deal with JD / Hummel.

Fat arse took his claim to court and won the right to match the deal. The judge told them to sort it out pronto.

Feck all happened. Is this because fat boy hasn't matched the deal yet? Is it because he cannot match the deal (as he cannot bully Hummels price down)

Rangers ran out of patience and went to market. A real life indication to any judge as to the £££ being denied to the club by the stalling tactics.

Sounds like we have presented a decent case to the judge highlighting his disruptive tactics, We will have shifted more kit in 4 weeks than we have in the last 4 years.
This all day long.
 
You're barking up the wrong tree.
Im not saying you don't care but this was never a simple solution. I believe from the night the shirts went on sale recently that it was a move by King to force a position.
Yes certainly has forced a position,possibility we'll be told to stop selling merch and he has us back up in court and if wins his case,we'll have to pay his court costs.
This is not good at all.
 
No one cares about SD, probably even the tims. A bit of disruption at a House of Fraser store though, that’s a different kettle of fish altogether. Fat Boy probably thinks he has a way into retail Royalty with that one.
 
So Sports Direct have the option to match the best deal on the table.

Surely it's down to Rangers to set down the conditions for that deal, then a company such as JD Sports wins the contract, which includes those conditions set by Rangers.

If Sports Direct match the deal, surely they need to abide by all the conditions Rangers set within the deal.

Does this not give Rangers a way of getting away from a deal with Sports Direct, as they could insert a condition which Sports Direct would have to accept if they were matching the other bid ?
Hopefully Rangers inserted a few conditions before JD Sports put in their bid, and now Sports Direct need to accept those conditions, such as non exclusivity of distribution.

Obviously it would have been difficult to get a company such as JD Sports to put a decent bid together if the contract was watered down too much, but I'm hoping clauses were inserted that would allow us to legally break away from a deal in certain circumstances.
 
So Sports Direct have the option to match the best deal on the table.

Surely it's down to Rangers to set down the conditions for that deal, then a company such as JD Sports wins the contract, which includes those conditions set by Rangers.

If Sports Direct match the deal, surely they need to abide by all the conditions Rangers set within the deal.

Does this not give Rangers a way of getting away from a deal with Sports Direct, as they could insert a condition which Sports Direct would have to accept if they were matching the other bid ?
Hopefully Rangers inserted a few conditions before JD Sports put in their bid, and now Sports Direct need to accept those conditions, such as non exclusivity of distribution.

Obviously it would have been difficult to get a company such as JD Sports to put a decent bid together if the contract was watered down too much, but I'm hoping clauses were inserted that would allow us to legally break away from a deal in certain circumstances.

Sports Direct could match or better any deal put together with almost every major sports brand due to their buying power. They can beat the price down on just about every one.

Sports Direct have virtually zero buying power with Hummel. A brand they do not stock. Hummel are 100% the key to this whole thing.

Unless Hummel give in and drop their price to the fat boy then he needs to save elsewhere or the deal will cost him more than it earns.

Fatty has been gazumped and is simply being disruptive now.
 
If you think the clubs legal advise was strong,then why are we back up in court once again ? Ashley couldn't take us to court simply because he doesn't like what we're doing,he will have legal issues with what we are doing hense why it's back into court.

I'm sticking by my own theory that those at the club have tried to get one over on him by selling through a 3rd party thinking he can't do anything about it and the club being fed up because both party's just can't come to an agreement and it's now backfired on us.

This has to be resolved one way or another otherwise we will continue to lose plenty in retail sales along with ping pong court dates which will ensue.

I also think Ashley will try and get an injunction to prevent us selling merch/strips until this is resolved,which will once again mean we have a product available which everyone wants to buy,but can't sell it.
It would appear that Ashley’s lawyers believe they have a strong case as well.
This is why it’s back to the court and let the judges decide.
It doesn’t mean Ashley will win.
 
Sports Direct could match or better any deal put together with almost every major sports brand due to their buying power. They can beat the price down on just about every one.

Sports Direct have virtually zero buying power with Hummel. A brand they do not stock. Hummel are 100% the key to this whole thing.

Unless Hummel give in and drop their price to the fat boy then he needs to save elsewhere or the deal will cost him more than it earns.

Fatty has been gazumped and is simply being disruptive now.

That’s what I was thinking as well. Here’s hoping!
 
I have never had any doubt that the fat wanker is doing this to help his mates out across the city. The idea has always been to restrict our earnings from the kit sales.
I am as convinced as I can be that when he did the original deal the real reason was about killing us off.
I suspect someone has got evidence somewhere on him that means he will keep trying to destroy us.
He’s trying to strangle our earnings for this year so that it hampers our recovery. I have little doubt that the board factored in kit sales for 2018 earnings and 2019 projections and the fat tosser is doing his best to ensure we don’t get any revenue and have to pay penalties
The behaviour makes a lot more sense if you think about it that way.
 
Surely any Judge could see that these spiv deals created years ago were severely detrimental, harmful even, to the club that they were supposed to benefit ? :confused: Its scandalous that they weren't thrown out long ago.
 
The nightmare scenario is things go in his favour because you can bet your shittybig fat mug he will be going for compensation on what’s been sold already. We are in a high risk strategy right now. I don’t have the legal knowledge to say if it’s the right call but what I do know is we haven’t been treated very kindly by the courts up till now.
 
Agree it is scandalous that this has been allowed to happen, it is a clear case of Ashley through his lackies David Somers, Derek Llambias and Barry Leach making decisions that went against the best interests of the club.
 
My guess is SD were dragging their heels on this “matching agreement” and Rangers told them, “meet the JD bid exactly” A$hley has stalled on doing so, so Rangers have said F-it and put the strips out on their own. Since we did this and don’t have a merchandising agreement with anyone as such, they will argue SD still have the opportunity to match JD but the club couldn’t wait any longer to put the kits on sale given the demand and possible pressure from Hummel (Perhaps our deal with them specified kits going on sale at a certain date) Even if this judgment goes against I fancy the judge will tell A$hley to wise up and table a legitimate bid or GTF. We have to hope we’ve sold enough kits so far that A$hley has lost the bulk of sales and we made enough to cover any ruling against us. A$hley will then be out of the picture in 7 months or so when a new 2019-20 strip is launched with Hummel
 
Did we use the same legal advise when we were going ahead with the JD sports deal ? The same deal that the fatman decided to take us to court and cost the club a shitload of money in paying his legal costs,good legal advise wouldn't have seen us being dragged through the courts and losing a very substantial amount of money.

The same thing is applying here where he is once again taking us to court in regards to selling our merch,someone at the club is either totally incompetent or doesn't have a clue what they are doing,If they did we wouldn't be going to court.

I think those on the board have decided they have had enough and gave him the two fingered salute and chanced their arm putting our merch on sale,simply down to the money we are losing through retail sales and tried to be cute by doing what they did and it has once again backfired on us.

A horrible fat bastard that he is but he's not stupid,It's absolutely frightening the money we have lost through retail,not including £3m the club paid him along with the hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal costs.

Whoever is giving the club advice is making a rip roaring arse of all this.

Its enough to make you believe that like Ashley "Our Lawyers", are in with Desmond and Lawell! PS; Throw in "The Judges", anaw!
 
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Massive London 'fatberg' to be turned into museum exhibit
If only...he's clogging up Rangers retail the bassa...

howay-image-4-781850659.jpg
 
The board agreed and signed the deal ffs.
So you would rather we were still tied into the old deal with no chance of getting out of it for years to come making buttons and noone buying strips, rather than sign the new 1 year deal, which raised us money as well as giving us the chance to rid ourselves of SD forever via the court cases we are now going through? I just don't get that. Sorry.
 
I still don’t get why we are legally tied to a toxic brand who actively want to undermine our ability to make money?

Is there a precedent for this elsewhere in any business or it just us?
 
I still don’t get why we are legally tied to a toxic brand who actively want to undermine our ability to make money?

Is there a precedent for this elsewhere in any business or it just us?

I’d like to know why this has never been answered.

Seven years on from Whyte arriving and the club is still getting battered from pillar to post. Has Alistair Johnston still not been cleared by the SFA yet? Is that not now over a year? WTF is going on.
 
I can see only two scenarios here.
Since we clearly aren't in an exclusive partnership with SD any more given our recent agreements with third parties, either SD did not match within the stipulated time limits (for whatever reason), or they exercised their option to match only one or two of the terms. Either way, leaving us free to negotiate the third (retail) with others.

Wonder what the slug is claiming this time? But until we know which of the above is true, there's no point speculating.
 
Since Fat Boy now owns HOF, how about we organise a few thousand bears to go in and buy something from his shop a few weeks before Xmas.

Then, on Christmas Eve, or the 23rd, we can all go and return whatever it was we bought, keeping his checkouts occupied all day so that his Xmas sales are shit on.
The ultimate tango.
Love the idea but many stores extend return dates and don't accept returns are that time.
 
Fatties argument in the last court case was that compo was not the preferred method and that the first option would be for the contract to be honoured.

Unfortunately the judge agreed

Also, he argued that $1m wouldn’t be enough as it was impossible to work out ‘footfall’ etc, ie traffic through their store buying rangers gear and then possibly other items.

I am not sure why a compo figure was ever written into the contract in the first place.?

Anyway, given that the judge seemed to accept things that were not part of the contract (compo levels bi ng insufficient etc) then surely Rangers have the same arguments?

Ie:

Point to how much we have made off merch in the past and include other examples such as Celtics deal and profits etc as a measure of how much we should also expect to make

Point to the fact that Rangers fans will simply not buy off of Ashley, therefore any partnership with him would be detrimental to sales

Point to how much we made in just a few weeks selling direct

Point to how much we lost in the 2 months where he was messing about

Point to how much the JD deal was worth

Point to the fact that a ‘partnership’ is to the mutual benefit of both parties, not just one bullying and hamstringing the other for their own benefit only

Etc etc
 
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