Freshfields wins role on ongoing Liverpool FC saga
The High Court battle between Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Liverpool Football Club’s US owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett got underway this morning with the aim of resolving a power struggle on the club’s board.
Erskine Chambers’ Richard Snowden QC was instructed by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer partner Patrick Swain to act for the bank in the application hearing before Mr Justice Floyd this morning.
Snowden faced Maitland Chambers’ Paul Girolami QC, who was been instructed by Peters & Peters partner Jonathan Tickner and partner Keith Oliver for Hicks and Gillett.
The club owes more than £200m to RBS, which has instructed Snowden to argue that the court should grant it mandatory injunctive relief to reconstitute the club’s board.
Snowden told Floyd J that Hicks and Gillett carried out a deliberate breach of contract when they moved to sack the club’s managing director Christian Purslow and commercial director Ian Ayre from the board last week. Such a move was contrary to an agreement the pair made with the bank when they extended a £237m line of credit in April, Snowden said.
Responding, Girolami rejected suggestions that his clients had disbanded the board as a means of stalling the sale of the club to US bidders New England Sport Ventures (NESV). Instead, he argued, the club had received two alternative bids, which the owners felt needed to be considered.
The first came from Singapore-based Meriton, which is owned by Singapore tycoon Peter Lim. The company is being advised on its £320m bid by Macfarlanes on the domestic front and by Singapore firm WongPartnership (12 October 2010).
The second bid has come from US hedgefund Mill Financial, which is being advised by Mayer Brown, with UK corporate head Peter Dickinson and partner Kate Ball-Dodd leading. That bid included a commitment to pay off the company’s creditors as well as spending at least £100m on a new stadium.
The club has until the end of the week to settle its outstanding debts with RBS otherwise the bank could force it into administration, costing the club nine Premier League points.
The case continues this afternoon.
Readers' comments (6)
Shankly... | 12-Oct-2010 5:26 pm
We hope our Club Liverpool does not go into any adminstration cause of Sick owners and court case.
it is deeply saddening..
Shankly once said Football is Life"
its a Game with PAssion, Love...
"Money is not eveything"..
Why are others spoiling it for us all"!!!
Life long Liverpool fan
Stephen K
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tega | 12-Oct-2010 6:03 pm
i hop liverpool not 4 dow becos the way thind are goin i did like it let . is tru money is not anything becos i want the club to come back to there position let the count send that person that dont want the club to go 4word and we nid to by new player br4 nest yer pls consider the point
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kazungu Abu | 12-Oct-2010 8:17 pm
am liverpool fan , i support, the take over of liverpool football club, to other p'ple
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Ashley Balls | 12-Oct-2010 9:24 pm
What a sad indictment on modern business. A bunch of ego driven men with more money than sense getting their kicks (no pun intended) from buying football clubs and loading them up with debt so that the 'value' released can be used elsewhere. Where is the beautiful game after all this nonsense? Watching oligarchs towing city solicitors in their wake is all rather tawdry. No one comes out of this well, not the clubs, not the game, not the lawyers, nor any of those who see these shenanigans as a genuine business venture. It clearly is nothing of the kind; it is the extraction of value for use elsewhere and b****r the consequences. Another rather nasty side of capitalism where the creation of wealth supercedes all.
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Tim Farmer | 13-Oct-2010 9:39 am
easy for you to say
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Anonymous | 13-Oct-2010 10:23 am
Although not a Liverpool Fan....I do feel sorry for them.
I hope that the club does get taken over :o)
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