Sons of Struth on Sports Direct Court Action

He would be in breach of contract long before the season began.
But he would not care. His excuse would be that he could not get enough profit out of the ‘matching clause’ and would probably challenge that.
His endgame is to throttle Rangers as it is personal with King.
 
For the laymen amongst us, is there any light at the end of the tunnel as to getting shot of this fat parasite once and for all?
 
But he would not care. His excuse would be that he could not get enough profit out of the ‘matching clause’ and would probably challenge that.
His endgame is to throttle Rangers as it is personal with King.
read my other reply, after that.
 
The big risk with SDI getting any of the rights is that the fat man would decide not to either buy any stock from a manufacturer and/or sell any of the merchandise just to strengthen his hand by strangling our revenue.
He could agree to match anything and then do nothing, which would put the club in a precarious position.
I believe that is one of the reasons that Rangers were willing to pay to get out of the original deal and are so reticent to even think of doing business again with the walking heart attack.

But if there was a guaranteed minimum payment to the club as part of any deal that he had to match then he would only be hurting his own pocket in such a case. He simply would not want to know about it for that specific reason. That is why I'm annoyed with our Directors for putting us into the situation where we end up paying out to Ashley.
 
It depends what you define as a "win". Yes, SD may receive damages and 'win' the decision but the payout is a lot less than the income we've been receiving elsewhere.

I'm not sure how SD illustrate a loss of sales given the working relationship in recent times. I guess Rangers are steering them this way in order we can reveal more about that relationship.
Pretty much sums up my thoughts.

Rangers know they reneged on the SD contract and I doubt were expecting to win any court proceedings. But if 'losing' means making a bit less money than we otherwise would have in order to get rid of him for good, then it is more than worth it. I severely doubt hummel / elite went into this with their eyes closed either.
 
A matching clause is pretty common in these contracts.

New Balance are willing to match the Nike offer to Liverpool and NB appear willing to continue with their action.

Liverpool’s argument is not just the financial matching but the terms of exposure and world wide network of distribution and marketing with their preferred new supplier.

We should be making this point in our defence case. SD do not enhance our brand or marketing aims and therefore cannot match new contract.
 
It looks to me this wasnt a normal contract negotiation, it looks to me like Rangers and Elite were looking to held each other out (not saying theres anything wrong with that). Can you imagine after coming to terms of an agreement Rangers then say to Elite, thanks for putting this together but now we need to offer SDI the right to match it? It would be a waste of Elite's time in my opinion. Looks like we never had any intention of offering them to match it.

Makes sense to me.

W.A.T.P.
 
What gets me in all this is that what Ashley does all appears to be legal, his company dealings are morally and ethically corrupt, it puts businesses in danger and peoples livelihoods at risk, all to make money for his company and its shareholders.

What transpired at our club from the day SDM sold us to that c()nt Whyte is utterly incomprehensible, like something from a Hollywood movie, yet it all appears to be legal!
 
It looks to me this wasnt a normal contract negotiation, it looks to me like Rangers and Elite were looking to held each other out (not saying theres anything wrong with that). Can you imagine after coming to terms of an agreement Rangers then say to Elite, thanks for putting this together but now we need to offer SDI the right to match it? It would be a waste of Elite's time in my opinion. Looks like we never had any intention of offering them to match it.

Which is now of course the huge issue we have if we have to continue contract with SD after all this & my main concern. Jude rules, remain in contract with SD - who is going to offer a sound deal.
 
Not in 2019
Court settlement due Jan 2020
Appeals, counter appeals, Ashley dying to follow, more appeals. Be years mate!
given judge has ruled we cant sell hummel/elite for 20/21 season and that usually starts around the cup final, (may), it doesn't leave much time for a conclusion.
 
Have to say that I don’t find the passages published by SoS reassuring at all, and I can’t agree with their positive take on developments.

I think the contractual cap would hold for a breach of contract claim.


SDI Retail are trying to get around the contractual cap in damages by bringing a claim which is not based on breach of contract.


They are alleging that Blair (for whom we would be vicariously liable) fraudulently misrepresented the position in a letter to them and thus induced them not to take certain court action in mid-2018. They suggest they would not have suffered loss had they brought the court action.


They seem to be making a case that this fraudulent misrepresentation caused them loss - as an alternative to the claim for damages for the breach of contract.


This is a common law delict (or in English Law, Tort) claim. There is a real prospect this is not covered by the contractual cap.


16.2 of the contract does seek to exclude liability under Tort, but still refers to liability “under this agreement,” which this wouldn't be. In any event, an exclusion of liability for fraud would be unlikely to survive the court’s scrutiny if fraud were indeed to be proven.


16.3 is the provision which actually sets out the cap itself – I don’t think that the wording of this clause has ever been fully published though I may be wrong. Whether the cap applies in these circumstances (if fraud is proven) is I suspect highly dubious.


Separately, it looks like Elite are being brought in as another party. If Elite are made subject to damages we will likely be liable to Elite for the same amount. There would be no cap as between Elite and SDI, so this is another way the cap could be avoided.


Marty101,

They were told to get a deal done around 18 months ago and done nothing.

They have exercised all known routes to court to ensure RFC makes no money from merchandise.

I can honestly see the judge throw them out of court as they appear to be constantly holding up the court by bringing further claims and amendments to the table.

It is no more than bottlenecking the process
 
Marty101,

They were told to get a deal done around 18 months ago and done nothing.

They have exercised all known routes to court to ensure RFC makes no money from merchandise.

I can honestly see the judge throw them out of court as they appear to be constantly holding up the court by bringing further claims and amendments to the table.

It is no more than bottlenecking the process
Whilst there is chat about why we should or shouldn't have offered them a deal, you almost get the impression we knew we would be dragged back into court. If we offered them the rights they could have accepted but not bothered their arse to run it properly and we would be back in court whilst no strips were being sold. In a way I'd rather be back in court whilst strips are available as it has proven the demand for strips when SDI arent on the receiving end of revenue
 
is it still the case we simply wont be wearing and or selling hummell gear in any shape or form next season?
 
I don't see how we can win this case either. The judge has already decided by the looks of things that we are in breach - the only thing to be decided is whether we need to pay more than the figures stated on the agreement or not.

One thing that will absolutely 100% not be taken into consideration is whether it's the right course of action. Whether Ashley took advantage of a nasty position and the very poor effect it'll have on the club financially going forward. Ashley is a crook and regardless of who brought the contract on board within our club currently he had all the advantage and us over a barrel in agreeing that.

As for the suggestions by Sports Direct that we have attempted any kind of fraud should be met with the harshest response possible. It's about time people started ripping chunks off of Ashley.

His investors must be losing trust and faith in him. His own staff don't even want to be associated any longer. That's the high up people at executive level who have made a healthy living out of his devious behaviour. You'd genuinely think an intelligent man who likes making money would want to keep away from this kind of fight. No matter what way this case goes it's not going to make him the kind of money he wants.

He's not an intelligent man sadly mate. A very, very rich buffoon that would destroy his own empire of shitey trainers to win a pissing contest.
 
Sorry, but I cant link to the post on Facebook, so have copied and pasted


SPORTS DIRECT “NEW” COURT ACTION TURNS OUT TO BE AN AMENDMENT AND NEW FACTS ABOUT RANGERS KIT DEAL

As discussed previously on these pages, the MSM media headlines of “NEW SD ACTION” were incorrect, we can now prove it by publishing the publicly available court documents that can backup our previous claim.

These documents consist of 69 pages of the “amended” SD claim and include some very interesting unknown facts about Rangers current deal with Elite.

Buried in the document SD disclose certain terms of the Rangers/Elite agreement including “£2m-£3.4m” of guaranteed annual fee for having selling rights plus 10% of overseas sales with a min of “£100,000” per season for overseas sales. These figures seem to have been given to SD as part of a release of information to SD as part of these proceedings. This means Rangers will be guaranteed £2.1m to £3.5m per year for three years as part of this agreement. There’s not enough information available to work out how much more Rangers may be paid during the contract.

As we’ve said previously, when deciding who wins this battle, we must consider where we were with retail and where we will end up after any successful claim (if successful at all) from SD. We previously made little to nothing from strip sales and were tied to this deal for 7 years. Using these newly disclosed figures it’s guaranteed Rangers would receive £14.7m-£24.5m guaranteed plus potential bonuses over seven years even if we failed to gain increased terms for the remainder of the 7 year period.

In the contract there is a £1m cap on damages. Some have claimed this cap has been discarded by the court yet this is simply untrue. No decision on this cap has been made by the court but nonetheless, even if the cap was discarded it’s doubtful any successful claim would reach anywhere near the multi millions that Rangers can achieve with this new elite deal and any subsequent deals throughout the next seven years.

With the £1m cap in place, this may be a reason for a change of tact by SD who, in this amended charge, attempt to sue Rangers AND Elite in the hope they can extract more money from this case.

Their amended charge includes some outlandish claims of “fraud” and “conspiracy” between Rangers and Elite to sidestep SD in their attempts to get involved with Rangers kit sales and includes details of both Rangers and Elite totally ignoring attempts by SD to order kit. This appears a very strange request as Rangers fans in the majority have a self decided boycott of Sports Direct stores and the vast majority declined to buy Rangers kit from SD during the years that SD was the only outlet for replica kit. How they attempt to show a court that they’ve lost revenue by not being able to have stock during the last two years while others have been selling tops should provide interesting reading when the court hears their logic.

As many distractors wish you to believe the £1m cap has disappeared, SD have brought new proceedings and Rangers have been beat at court, let’s not get carried away and just consider two things. 1) Rangers may win this case 2) Rangers may be due money from SD

Despite the noise, let’s just see what happens next when the court next meets in Jan 2020

*the full 69 pages are in our procession but Facebook limits the amount of pictures that can be listed per post.
First time poster go easy.

Maybe I'm daft I don't know but I think this is a good thing. If the figures are true of £2m to £3.4m of guaranteed income from our current distributor means SD will have to match that. So we all know very few bears will buy off the slug or anything to do with him but he has a deal to give us £2m to £3.4m a year or whatever our current distributors give the Club. Difference being we buy loads off them.

I think the Chairman and Board have worked a blinder I don't see fatty matching the current deal and selling nothing or next to it working for SD at all. As long as we have a garunteed income figure from last year he will have to match it if our current guys offer the same deal n if he does he's f%%ked.
 
First time poster go easy.

Maybe I'm daft I don't know but I think this is a good thing. If the figures are true of £2m to £3.4m of guaranteed income from our current distributor means SD will have to match that. So we all know very few bears will buy off the slug or anything to do with him but he has a deal to give us £2m to £3.4m a year or whatever our current distributors give the Club. Difference being we buy loads off them.

I think the Chairman and Board have worked a blinder I don't see fatty matching the current deal and selling nothing or next to it working for SD at all. As long as we have a garunteed income figure from last year he will have to match it if our current guys offer the same deal n if he does he's f%%ked.


He has matched it though.

He also has no intention of manufacturing / distributing the merchandise.
 
He has matched it though.

He also has no intention of manufacturing / distributing the merchandise.
Hummel manufacture the kit he's a distributor only and has nothing to do with who we select as manufacturer. Also reading through SoS post I think we are at court because we did not give SD the chance to match we went ahead.
 
Back
Top