Rangers & SD back in court today

No doubt about that. A victory on the definition of terms would almost certainly open the gateway for us to get rid of SDI altogether.

The way I look at it it, based on what we actually know from the previous court appearance, is that SDI's team specifically asked the judge to address certain clauses and wording to clarify them - these were around the definition of the exclusivity and matching clause terms from memory.

They fcked themselves with their timing though - they raised it AFTER agreeing the out of court position. That meant the judge said "nothing to do with me anymore, you've agreed out of court and I'm not involved any more".

They also asked for court time in September to resolve anticipated issues agreeing on the new deal - same scenario "fck off, that's not how court works".

Now - the big takeaway, if you're an opportunist and paying attention on the RFC side, is that the terms they have asked the judge to look at are evidently ones SDI are a bit worried about, they must believe there's a sense of ambiguity or wiggle room to even ask the judge to clarify them.

That (you'd have to think) would be a specific point of attack for our legal team to try and exploit.

It may well be that is exactly what we've done during negotiations and by engaging Elite group in particular.

That makes absolute sense.

If they themselves have identified a potential weakness (from their perspective) in the deal then the club exploiting it, or testing it through sales via a third party, and through that finding a way round the deal would be good business.
 
The time is fast approaching for every RSC across the country to park themselves outside of their local SD stores during peak hours on a Saturday and a Sunday.

Enough is enough with this fat c.un.t.
Nope, do it at House of Fraser. Some big brands in house there paying him rent for premium city centre floor space. They won't be long in making him think of this differently.
 
Surely, Mart, we must have something as the lawyers themselves wouldn’t go to court with a simple fatuous argument.
Is there not a term for this, wasting court time.
Our argument is based on the construction of our agreement with SDI. It's difficult to know much at all about our position based on just that. However, our legal experts must have found something in our retail contract they believe allows us to sell merch through other partners, or to obtain some other desirable outcome by doing so.
We must believe we have a good chance of winning.
 
Our argument is based on the construction of our agreement with SDI. It's difficult to know much at all about our position based on just that. However, our legal experts must have found something in our retail contract they believe allows us to sell merch through other partners, or to obtain some other desirable outcome by doing so.
We must believe we have a good chance of winning.

Technically we are selling the kits on our own and not through a 'retailer' as such, maybe thats the thinking behind the gerstoreonline website and would explain why JD have removed all of our products.
 
A joint venture with NUFC fans to crucify SD in some concerted campaign would really hurt the fat greaser!!!

Ideas like those above would be a great start.
 
Tbh that's not a bad plan doesn't even need to be Xmas

Doing it two times a month on Saturdays / Sundays when game is not on would massively happier his profits in all his spots if you do it in his sd shops in Glasgow alone you pretty much kill there profits monthly and those shops become money drains

Should organise a real life Denial of Service attack a few weekends on the run up to Christmas, fill HoF/SD with 10k+ Bears, don't even have to buy anything just politely cutting about in the shop, trying things on, asking questions of staff. The place would be full meaning no access for those who actually intend to buy things.

Could coordinate it with the Geordies as they must be sick of the cnut too.
 
The fans may have a part to play yet.

Disruption at his stores or crowdfund for decent lawyer to unpick the whole sorry mess outing all spivs involved in this sham right from the start
 
Should organise a real life Denial of Service attack a few weekends on the run up to Christmas, fill HoF/SD with 10k+ Bears, don't even have to buy anything just politely cutting about in the shop, trying things on, asking questions of staff. The place would be full meaning no access for those who actually intend to buy things.

Could coordinate it with the Geordies as they must be sick of the cnut too.

If each of those 10,000 bears filled a basket, rang it through the till then said they'd changed their mind at the end of it and walked away every Saturday and Sunday in from now until Christmas it would create carnage.
 
The fans may have a part to play yet.

Disruption at his stores or crowdfund for decent lawyer to unpick the whole sorry mess outing all spivs involved in this sham right from the start
I posted before that we should stinkbomb his shops.
It just needs a couple of them dropped, somebody will step on them at some point.
Between us and the Geordies we could easily hit every one of his shops in the UK.
 
I posted before that we should stinkbomb his shops.
It just needs a couple of them dropped, somebody will step on them at some point.
Between us and the Geordies we could easily hit every one of his shops in the UK.

i hope we don't come across any mice !
the place would have to be shut down
 
I posted before that we should stinkbomb his shops.
It just needs a couple of them dropped, somebody will step on them at some point.
Between us and the Geordies we could easily hit every one of his shops in the UK.
Would be a pity if alarms kept going off too.

A real shame.
 
We've signed a new deal with SD. What I don't get is why aren't they selling our merch! It's a long shot, but what I hope is the judge will see the reasons for SD holding back as shenanigans and carpet them. In his scathing ruling he tells SD to get their act together, tells us to go right ahead selling through other partners, and tells SD to pay for the court costs. If he could finish up his summation with a fcuk you Mike Ashley that'd be the cherry on top.

Where are you getting the news that we have signed a new deal with SD?
 
It's reported in the Evening Express piece. Sports Direct have taken us to court for breach of contract. They believe our arrangements with other parties to sell merch breaches the deal we agreed with them. The new deal between SD and Rangers following July's court hearing.
The breach they are alledging could be that we haven't let them match or haven't given them enough time.
It is a leap to say we have signed a new contract with them.
 
Last edited:
When will the outcome be made public?

If they were seeking an interim interdict to prevent us selling any more kit then you'd have expected a decision last night or, at the latest, this morning.

Maybe they've not sought an interdict but are seeking resolution of the 'matching deal' stuff.

The fact we are still selling via Rangers outlet indicates no injunction granted (as yet).
 
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.

It has been answered.

It's because we signed the contract!
 
Rangers haven't announced the new deal with SD. But given the previous contract with SD had expired, and SD had us in court yesterday for breach of contract, then a new deal has indeed been agreed. A contract must be in place with SD before it can be breached.


This does not imply a new contract has been signed. The matching cluase from the old contract is teh breach SD will be claiming
 
If they were seeking an interim interdict to prevent us selling any more kit then you'd have expected a decision last night or, at the latest, this morning.

Maybe they've not sought an interdict but are seeking resolution of the 'matching deal' stuff.

The fact we are still selling via Rangers outlet indicates no injunction granted (as yet).

Would've expected some kind of, at least, interim verdict on that aspect pretty fast. Even if it needed further consideration for the longer term, you would expect the judge to say either "stop selling kit until I've seen more detail and been able to rule on it" or "carry on until then because there's nothing up-front that convinces me to stop you selling immediately."
 
It’s time we took the fight to Fatty, and caused chaos in every retail outlet he’s connected with, not just SD.

Anything at all that slows down, interrupts or stops any retail outlet at peak times on a Friday Saturday & Sunday would hinder the ability to take sales, and the cumulative effect would be major.

Obviously nothing illegal, but significant nuisance factors would have a major effect on their ability to trade.

There’s tens of thousands of us - we can seriously hurt his business interests
 
No need for two trips. Go in the 23rd or 24th. Get a lot of merchandise and take it to the till. Wait until it is rung up, then say sorry it looks like I've forgotten my credit card, I'll come back.
even better, from home, fill up your online basket with thousands of pounds worth of stuff and leave it in until its removed maybe a few days. then do it again, and again, and again. the stock will show as sold while its in your basket preventing them from selling it. Also save the shop assistants hassle.
 
This will be the end game for us.

Court will either rule we are in breach for selling kits or will rule SD haven't matched and we are free to carry on.

If it goes in SD's favour it is highly unlikey a judge would rule for performance (as has been said). Relations are far to broken down for that to be likely.
We would then be looking at damages. But we know those are capped at £1million.
This cannot be renegotied. Courts do not renegotiate contracts.

The confusion from some quarters that the £1million cap can be set aside arides from the argument from SD that it was not sufficient when they were looking for an injunction over the summer. This was argued because that is one of the tests for awarding an injunction....that damages will not be sufficent in the event of a breach, so the injunction stopped the breach.
That argument is now moot.

And of course if we win then we are out from SD without even having to give him up to £1million.

If anyone said we could be away from SD for another £1million plus costs I'm sure most of us would grab that.
 
We seem to be getting another Whyte was an evil genius and not out to deliberately harm us on here with Mick Ashley and his actions.

It was just over 3 years ago I posted on here , standing in the doorway of Sports Direct on Sauchiehall St taking cover from a downpour, about how the front of this shop , the official Rangers merchandise supplier remember , was filled from the front door all the way down the escalators with life size posters of Celtic players in their new kit, in our own feckin city! Our official supplier!

Mick Ashley isn’t doing this for business reasons or as some personal vendetta he is doing it on behalf of someone else. And don’t tell me the GAA contract won by Sports Direct is just another coincidence.
 
SD share price on 4th April 2014 was 922.
Today, it's 306. Appropriate action by Bears will push it down further. That's what will hurt him. Nothing else.
How much of SD does Ashley own?
I’m thinking that the other shareholders ant be pleased with this slump.
If only there were enough of them to influence the strategy.
 
This will be the end game for us.

Court will either rule we are in breach for selling kits or will rule SD haven't matched and we are free to carry on.

If it goes in SD's favour it is highly unlikey a judge would rule for performance (as has been said). Relations are far to broken down for that to be likely.
We would then be looking at damages. But we know those are capped at £1million.
This cannot be renegotied. Courts do not renegotiate contracts.

The confusion from some quarters that the £1million cap can be set aside arides from the argument from SD that it was not sufficient when they were looking for an injunction over the summer. This was argued because that is one of the tests for awarding an injunction....that damages will not be sufficent in the event of a breach, so the injunction stopped the breach.
That argument is now moot.

And of course if we win then we are out from SD without even having to give him up to £1million.

If anyone said we could be away from SD for another £1million plus costs I'm sure most of us would grab that.

This. The matter from my perspective is reasonably clear. The conclusion at the end if the last case was that SD had the right to match the deal on offer from JD. There is no scope for negotiation around this. SD either matches it or it doesn't. If they had agreed to match we wouldn't be where we are today in a court arguing about it. If SD have not agreed to match then I think any reasonable judge will tell them politely to go away.
 
We seem to be getting another Whyte was an evil genius and not out to deliberately harm us on here with Mick Ashley and his actions.

It was just over 3 years ago I posted on here , standing in the doorway of Sports Direct on Sauchiehall St taking cover from a downpour, about how the front of this shop , the official Rangers merchandise supplier remember , was filled from the front door all the way down the escalators with life size posters of Celtic players in their new kit, in our own feckin city! Our official supplier!

Mick Ashley isn’t doing this for business reasons or as some personal vendetta he is doing it on behalf of someone else. And don’t tell me the GAA contract won by Sports Direct is just another coincidence.

Why would he be doing it though? A favour owed? Or somebody has something on him? The whole thing does stink from start to finish.
 
This will be the end game for us.

Court will either rule we are in breach for selling kits or will rule SD haven't matched and we are free to carry on.

If it goes in SD's favour it is highly unlikey a judge would rule for performance (as has been said). Relations are far to broken down for that to be likely.
We would then be looking at damages. But we know those are capped at £1million.
This cannot be renegotied. Courts do not renegotiate contracts.

The confusion from some quarters that the £1million cap can be set aside arides from the argument from SD that it was not sufficient when they were looking for an injunction over the summer. This was argued because that is one of the tests for awarding an injunction....that damages will not be sufficent in the event of a breach, so the injunction stopped the breach.
That argument is now moot.

And of course if we win then we are out from SD without even having to give him up to £1million.

If anyone said we could be away from SD for another £1million plus costs I'm sure most of us would grab that.

I'm not entirely convinced of that line of thought.

Us breaching the contract, given the previous court situations wouldn't do much more than force us to stop selling via the third party and to get back round the table with SDI - although in that circumstance, I suspect they would seek some form of damages/revenue share from sales made so far via those other retailers.

Failure to stick to the matching clause was defined at £1 million, but the precedent given in the last court date was one which proved that could not be deemed sufficient to effectively allow one side to easily walk away from a binding contract agreement for a nominal fee.

I think they'd have reasonable grounds to seek more if they could point to evidence of revenue losses in excess of the £1m. Not sure what the current sales figures would likely be, but they may provide some indicative sense of value of this season's sales - not to mention the added weight of European competition, SG, etc which would bolster numbers too.

I would honestly anticipate us having to agree some sort of out of court fee to settle the breach dispute in any case if it goes in favour of SDI.

I also think that we would simply be back to thrashing out a new deal with them.

In normal circumstance no two "partners" would even consider moving forward with a relationship and would seek to sever ties. However, this is far from a normal situation and we have one side holding the other on a contractual leash and unable to get out of a blatantly toxic relationship.
 
This. The matter from my perspective is reasonably clear. The conclusion at the end if the last case was that SD had the right to match the deal on offer from JD. There is no scope for negotiation around this. SD either matches it or it doesn't. If they had agreed to match we wouldn't be where we are today in a court arguing about it. If SD have not agreed to match then I think any reasonable judge will tell them politely to go away.

They had agreed to match the relevant aspects before even leaving court - negotiations were obviously around the rest of the contract. It is not the matching elements of the JD deal that will be faltering anything as they were defined, known and accepted before walking out the courtroom.
 
How much of SD does Ashley own?
I’m thinking that the other shareholders ant be pleased with this slump.
If only there were enough of them to influence the strategy.

He'd be delighted were he de-listing/buying up stock! IIRC, he sells shares annually & pockets the bunce. That isn't going well at 30% of market value 4 years ago :p. Debenham's recent troubles impact him too. He's just bought HoF (albeit on the cheap) & that's not gone well. The difficulty for disgruntled s/holders is that he controls the vast majority of SD's stock, Tazz.
 
Why would he be doing it though? A favour owed? Or somebody has something on him? The whole thing does stink from start to finish.

Only he really knows. Remember he is a Cockney the same way the likes of Charlie Nicholas is a Glaswegian, we all originally come from somewhere.

Put it this way no one is ever going to convince me what he and Sports Direct are doing is normal business practice, be it aggressive business practice or not it doesn’t make any sense.
 
I'm not entirely convinced of that line of thought.

Us breaching the contract, given the previous court situations wouldn't do much more than force us to stop selling via the third party and to get back round the table with SDI - although in that circumstance, I suspect they would seek some form of damages/revenue share from sales made so far via those other retailers.

Failure to stick to the matching clause was defined at £1 million, but the precedent given in the last court date was one which proved that could not be deemed sufficient to effectively allow one side to easily walk away from a binding contract agreement for a nominal fee.

I think they'd have reasonable grounds to seek more if they could point to evidence of revenue losses in excess of the £1m. Not sure what the current sales figures would likely be, but they may provide some indicative sense of value of this season's sales - not to mention the added weight of European competition, SG, etc which would bolster numbers too.

I would honestly anticipate us having to agree some sort of out of court fee to settle the breach dispute in any case if it goes in favour of SDI.

I also think that we would simply be back to thrashing out a new deal with them.

In normal circumstance no two "partners" would even consider moving forward with a relationship and would seek to sever ties. However, this is far from a normal situation and we have one side holding the other on a contractual leash and unable to get out of a blatantly toxic relationship.


The importance of the £1 million cap was due to a specific test in the rules on whether an injunction will be awarded. That was the only relevance as to whether is was sufficient or not and is now moot in terms of that injunction.

It is still a clause in the contract which both parties agreed.
Courts do not renegotiate clauses in contracts.
There is no reason at all to believe the £1million cap would be discarded if a breach was proven.

This will come down to whether SD have acted in good faith since the summer rulling. If they have then in all probability Rangers will be in breach and the liquidated damages clause will be enacted.
If they haven't (more than likely I would think even if they claim otherwise) then Rangers would be able to claim damages (capped at £1million).
 
The importance of the £1 million cap was due to a specific test in the rules on whether an injunction will be awarded. That was the only relevance as to whether is was sufficient or not and is now moot in terms of that injunction.

It is still a clause in the contract which both parties agreed.
Courts do not renegotiate clauses in contracts.
There is no reason at all to believe the £1million cap would be discarded if a breach was proven.

This will come down to whether SD have acted in good faith since the summer rulling. If they have then in all probability Rangers will be in breach and the liquidated damages clause will be enacted.
If they haven't (more than likely I would think even if they claim otherwise) then Rangers would be able to claim damages (capped at £1million).

I'm sure there must be more to it mate, despite you clearly having some knowledge of the subject.

Notwithstanding we paid £3m last Summer to get out of the original contract I'm sure if it was as 'simple' as paying a further £1m to walk away from the current one then we would have done so fairly sharpish. No?
 
I'm sure there must be more to it mate, despite you clearly having some knowledge of the subject.

Notwithstanding we paid £3m last Summer to get out of the original contract I'm sure if it was as 'simple' as paying a further £1m to walk away from the current one then we would have done so fairly sharpish. No?

We had to show good faith in honouring the matching clause. I can't imagine that would allow a sharpish exit.
But we are more than two months down the line and no deal appears to have been agreed with SD. That could surely be described as a reasonable time to give it before calling it quits and going elsewhere.
SD will agrue either it isn't long enough, we haven't acted in good faith or both and as a result we are in breach.
We will argue we aren't.

The only knowledge I have is from working every day with contracts and contract law.
The thing about contracts though is this. There isn't any dark art to them. In essence all they are are agreements between two or more parties. Thats it. You write down what you have agreed and sign them.

Thats why IMO it is highly unlikley the £1million cap in the liquidated damages clause will be set aside, because both parties agreed it, took the time to write it down and signed a contract with it in it. Courts tend not to get involved in re-writing clauses. They don't see that as their job.
 
Last edited:
No need for two trips. Go in the 23rd or 24th. Get a lot of merchandise and take it to the till. Wait until it is rung up, then say sorry it looks like I've forgotten my credit card, I'll come back.

This is what we done as SOS I got to £201.00 and gave them a pound for our naming rights!
 
We had to show good faith in honouring the matching clause. I can't imagine that would allow a sharpish exit.
But we are more than two months down the line and no deal appears to have been agreed with SD. That could surely be described as a reasonable time to give it before calling it quits and going elsewhere.
SD will agrue either it isn't long enough, we haven't acted in good faith or both and as a result we are in breach.
We will argue we aren't.

The only knowledge I have is from working every day with contracts and contract law.
The thing about contracts though is this. There isn't any dark art to them. In essence all they are are agreements between two or more parties. Thats it. You write down what you have agreed and sign them.

Thats why IMO it is highly unlikley the £1million cap in the liquidated damages clause will be set aside, because both parties agreed it, took the time to write it down and signed a contract with it in it. Courts tend not to get involved in re-writing clauses. They don't see that as their job.

You paint a reasonably positive picture - albeit one costing, in the worst case, £1m. Quite honestly if we rid ourselves of the Fat Man forever I'd be happy for the Board to take that hit.

After all we've been through though I fear it may not be quite so simple.

F*ck, I hope you are right.
 
The breach they are alledging could be that we haven't let them match or haven't given them enough time.
It is a leap to say we have signed a new contract with them.

They've had ample time to match or better the offer from JD......plain and simple we all know what that dispicable Ashley is doing......he has no intention of matching the deal.
 
The importance of the £1 million cap was due to a specific test in the rules on whether an injunction will be awarded. That was the only relevance as to whether is was sufficient or not and is now moot in terms of that injunction.

It is still a clause in the contract which both parties agreed.
Courts do not renegotiate clauses in contracts.
There is no reason at all to believe the £1million cap would be discarded if a breach was proven.

This will come down to whether SD have acted in good faith since the summer rulling. If they have then in all probability Rangers will be in breach and the liquidated damages clause will be enacted.
If they haven't (more than likely I would think even if they claim otherwise) then Rangers would be able to claim damages (capped at £1million).

It's moot in terms of that injunction but as a valid clause in the original contract then why would that same test not apply to a new injunction?

We are effectively in the same position as the previous injunction request (perhaps further down the line) in that we have agreed a retail deal with a third party that is, in SDI's opinion, in breach of the contract we had with them.

What was argued at the last case by both sides was that the £1 million was not sufficient and the judge seemed to agree that any damages would be near impossible to quantify.

That said, I'm not able to say it wouldn't be enforced. There simply seemed little appetite on either side to accept that as an outcome.

I personally think the difficulty would be in proving who is acting in good faith or not. We could simply have two legal teams failing to agree on specifics of a contract and given there is no time limit set to do so, it would presumably be very difficult to press one over the other.

Ultimately, I would have thought the more likely line of pressure from a court would be to tell the parties to fully honour the matching clause and retain all other elements of the existing deal as they were, save for the matching terms.

Surely easier to enforce if making the decision that time has passed to agree any new aspects? Tell SDI their right was to match the terms and retain everything else - take it or fck off.
 
The last court case was over whether there was a continuation clause with SD.

In the last court case the judgement was that we had to allow Sports Direct to stock and sell merchandise if they were able to match any offer. Judge told us to sort it out.

SD then filed a motion to see everything about other offers we had and the clauses they had and the Judge told them to GTF.

We then waited the minimum acceptable time and decided to sell our merchandise to other vendors and then SD went crying to their lawyers.

So, in my opinion one of two things happened since the previous case and the arguments in court are based on one of these outcomes:
  • SD lowballed us to try and see what was offered by other interested parties and are crying foul because we sold the strips without telling them what they needed to improve in their offer and because we didn't rattle all of the clauses off and give them time to match them, we are acting in bad faith.
  • SD didn't even make an offer and had no intention of doing so, but are claiming that because they haven't made an offer yet there is no way of telling if it is better or worse than one's we had on the table and we have to wait until they do make an offer before being able to sell kits.
Personally, the latter seems like the way they operate
 
Back
Top