rbr

Yes the very same , a man I admittedly despise with a passion.

And at the heart of all our troubles is James Blair, the lawyer with the bad memory who doesn't know the ,meaning of conflicts of interest , once again hes been handed his arse by a judge , I make that 4 times now and he's still our legal counsel jesus wept .

And this from The Lawman on RM who is usually spot on and pretty fair when it comes to these matters . Report post Posted 1 hour ago For anyone interested, i have now read through the entire agreement and just posted my thoughts on Twitter. https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sqv59s THAT contract. What were they thinking ? Finally sat down and been right through the findings. I don’t think anyone will be surprised when I say its yet another shit show from a Rangers Boardroom. Until I read the findings, I had played my cards close to my chest on who was giving the legal advice throughout but Lionel Persey QC makes it clear that James Blair is at the heart of it all. In fact, he even goes one step further and calls out something I have called out for years, the conflict of interest between Blair, the club and Club1872. Even an independent neutral with no skin in the game can see right through it all. Anyway, there really actually is nothing surprising in the judgement and nothing that wasn’t mentioned on Rangersmedia a year ago when it all first came out and a 120 page thread was created. In “getting rid of SD” the Rangers Board paid them £3 million to rip up the old contract, drop PERSONAL, CIVIL cases against Dave King and Paul Murray and then signed a new contract that basically said that SD can stay with us at renewal as long as they match what offer we got elsewhere. Just to go off on a little tangent here, NORMALLY, those terms would be perfectly fine. I would love to have lots of contractors and suppliers on terms that if I go and find a better deal elsewhere, then they step up to the plate and pay my businesses more. There is ZERO wrong with that. But only if: a) You are happy working with them. b) You are not trying to get rid of them. c) You are not telling all your paying customers you have got rid of them. d) You plan to not tell them about getting a better deal elsewhere then get sued. What the actual Feck were they thinking ? How can a qualified and experienced lawyer allow such a contract be signed. And even more incredible, how can he believe or convince us to spend millions defending what was absolute black and white. If this was an independent legal firm, we would be going after them for “wrong advice” I don’t think we can do that in the current set up. So, putting aside the absolute mess King, Murray and Blair have put us in(im giving the rest the benefit of doubt as they would take the word of Blair before approving) where does the findings actually leave us ? Its not always easy to interpret everything without the full context and other agreements made and despite my nom de plume on Rangersmedia, im not actually a man of the Law so this is only my interpretation of Paras 87 onwards. SD have said they will “allow” us to continue to wear the Hummel Kit as official kit for season 2019/20. In return, we have to stop “working with Elite/Hummel” in the background by not supporting new product launches or working with them for season 20/21 as SD will be back in contract for next season. SD have a claim for damages and loss of income for the seasons 2018/19 and 2019/20 which will likely involve some sort of disclosure of our profit streams for last season. Persey believes this will run to “millions of pounds” but I still don’t think we make as much money on retail as my fellow fans believe we do, so that one is a wait and see job. Although there is a clause limiting damages to £1m, the judgement suggests this is “not damages” but simply the matching right provisions due and therefore in this case, he sides with SD in that the £1m limit does not apply. So in summary. We will pay SD court costs. We will pay SD loss of revenue for 2 seasons. We will stay as we are with kits etc until next season. We will be back in contract with SD again from next season. We potentially face further court cases and contract breaches from Hummel and Elite. Our Board are abysmal.

From Reformation bear on RM , well worth a read . Right to match competitions are a well trodden commercial pathway. It was Rangers choice to set up a competitive tender exercise with right to match provisions in the request for bids. The Club did not have to do this but I understand why they would want to structure the competition under right to match conditions (to verify to the Board that the competition had secured the best possible offer). Having structured the competition to be on a right to match basis Rangers then: Breached the Agreement it had with SDIR by entering into the Elite Agreement and in doing so failed to offer SDIR the opportunity to exercise matching right in relation to Elite's offer. As a result a previous court ruling by Judge Teare granted SDIR final injunctive relief against Rangers and refused permission to appeal his decision (as did the Court of Appeal). It was not a case of SDIR not being given the chance to fully match the final offer made by Elite...…..Rangers never even invited them to do so. SDIR was not aware that Rangers had selected Elite (see below) and only found out about it via a Rangers press release. Rangers deliberately ignored the contract terms they themselves set up and imo ran roughshod over the entire procurement process by completely side-stepping a contractual (legal) requirement to fulfil the right to match obligations. It wasn't just not giving SDIR a chance to fully match...….it was a deliberate policy to never even invite them to put in a bid under right to match terms. This is not innocent commercial behaviour or a case where Rangers execs could try to plead ignorance. It was imo wilful, deliberate and done in full knowledge that what they were doing was in manifest non-compliance with a contract which they had agreed with SDIR. via Company Secretary Blair led SDIR a dance (Bair's own words) as reported by the Judge at para 27 told the world on 21 Sept 2018 that a webstore www.theersstoreonline.com (the "Elite Website") had gone live and that Elite would be selling Rangers' replica kit...…...BUT did not notify SDIR about the Elite Agreement and SDIR only learned about it on 25 Sept 2018 when it saw an announcement describing Elite as Rangers' "new non-excusive partners". warranted to Elite in the Elite Agreement that Rangers had all the necessary rights to grant Elite the rights set out in the agreement and indemnified Elite against all costs incurred in defending any proceedings against it (clause 11 of the Elite Agreement) and as reported by the Judge at para 29. It is not, imo, even remotely good business practice to forge new contractual relations (with Elite) and fail to assure Elite there were no actual or potential legacy matters relating to the SDIR contract. Imo, Rangers actions (or more to the point lack of them) then dragged Elite into the mess, caused them to incur unexpected costs etc and created unexpected demands on their management time in dealing with the mess caused by Rangers. I bet Elite did not think they were in for this sort of costly mess when they bid for the Rangers contract. I would imagine that any company thinking of doing commercial business with Rangers would want to look very carefully at the proposed contract terms and even then they might reasonably ask themselves that even if the company performs its obligations as per the contract...….will Rangers also perform the contract in accordance with the terms agreed? The track record at Ibrox is such that supplier might doubt the integrity of Rangers and its senior execs. I wouldn't blame them because the evidence points to Rangers not willing or able to honour contracts they enter into. This then introduces the risk that companies price-in a premium for doing business with Rangers on the basis that Rangers as a corporate entity is just too difficult and unreliable to do business with and if business is done with them then deals are priced accordingly. Which means Rangers pay more than it might otherwise pay for services, supplies and goods because the Rangers commercial reputation is shot to bits. IMO Rangers would only lose such a 'bad faith' reputation when director and exec decks are cleared and people of genuine integrity are brought in to run the business side of Rangers.

By the time you add the saving from wages etc , it works out about £1 million . Would have preferred to let him run his contract down and kept him

More than the £1 million cap , money from last season, this season plus damages

After today’s SD ruling , it’s safe to say we can expect more players out the door pronto .

That is absolutely horrific for us , in fact it should lead to people leaving the club , James Blair for one . This is going to cost us millions , the judge has stated that the £1 million cap is not sufficient , plus we owe them for this year and next year , theElite deal cannot continue from next season ( possible action by Elite ) , oh this just gets worse and worse for us .

Very poor second half from us , just cant get going at all .As stated above maybe due to Rovers pressing , if that's the case he needs to get them organized pronto

Your absolutely spot on , sad but very very true , and that's why I decided that Club1872 were no longer for me and fan ownership IMHO is pointless

Ok , sometimes you need to draw a line in the sand when debating , you are more than entitled to your opinion , just as I am to mine , let’s see how this plays out , I hope I’m wrong and your correct I really do .

We are in a bigger mess because we basically owe SD damages for not allowing them to match the “offer” , we have also entered into another contract with Elite sports which is against the deal we struck with SD , every single judge has thrown our arguements out of court , we have lost every point we have argued .

As Pete says, his deal states SD has the right to match any retail offer we get ,( there are 3 separate deals he wasnt given sight off ) , not only has he won every case , the judges in question have stated that the cap on damages are not sufficient, also we have been told to cease dealing with Elite sports . The fact Hummel refuse to sell to SD is neither here nor there , it's a complete mess as we may be liable to damages from Elite and Hummel should this go totally south .

Consummate professional . hope he stays and lifts 55

And since its the board and their professional advisors that have gotten us deeper into this mess then I cant see any way out , without it costing us serious money , Ashley has absolutely no reason to walk away , he has won every case brought to court , in fact not only has he won these cases they have actually strengthened his position .

How am I disagreeing, this board is to blame for the mess , same as the memorial garden which is on course to cost another £1 million because of the mistakes made , every year questions are asked and no answers come back .

This deal is for the 2nd biggest income stream the club has outside of European success, sorry but this is a massive deal , a massive drain on finances and potentially a massive drain on income due to the money we will have to pay SD in lost income , but sorry to fuss .

No it's exactly because of the last 8 years I'm highlighting it , we will just need to agree to disagree on this

No it's not, and how is Ashley to blame , who proposed the new contract , heres a hint , it wasn't him

Hastie was trying far too hard to impress the other night , some of the stuff he did was excellent , other times he should have played the simple ball and played players in , that's how you get dropped and it only makes it harder in the long term

Exactly my point Pete , but there are still some in our own support who blame Ashley , and I hate the fat prick , but this mess is of our own boards making and it's going to cost us millions

How many times do we need to get our drawers taken down in court and our bare arses spanked before people will see what is blatantly obvious , the old board got us into this mess , but our current board have made it a whole lot worse. We have went from a 7 year deal , to a never ending deal as long as SD get to match it , which by law we must allow them to offer on . The fact we never even understood our own clauses make it even worse .

We all want what’s best for Rangers , however we aren’t in a position to do anything serious about it , this board signed the new agreement no one else .

Club1872 were conned into wasting millions of members money to buy his shares at the same time DK told the world that the new deal had solved the problem , well guess what folks it hadn’t and didn’t and we are still stuck with this mess and it’s costing us , and going to cost us millions , the only thing that is saving this board is the football side , because off field we are still a joke , memorial garden anyone .

It's our own board and legal team that have royally screwed this up , blame them no one else