Jackie Broon

There's a specific appeals process for disqualification of directors (set out in rules F.13-F.22 of the PL Handbook) which the club were denied access to because the PL refused to give notice under rule F.6 that the proposed directors were disqualified (under rule F.1.1.1). Reading through that it seems like it would be a much faster process than arbitration. Had the club failed in the appeal I suppose we could have ended up at arbitration anyway but it was completely unreasonable behaviour of the PL to block the club's access to O&D test appeal process.

It’s easy for someone like Jacobs to sound convincing when he’s talking about something that is actually very legally complex in terms of common sense unbound by that legal complexity. PIF is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, with MbS and other government ministers on the board so it must be under the ‘control’ of the state, obvious common sense. That argument sounds very convincing, however, it’s clearly not that simple. The very first section of the Santiago Principles (the international principles by which most sovereign wealth funs operate) deals with legal separation and that many SWF are established as having separate legal identities to the state and full capacity to act independently. It’s clearly well established the SWFs can be legally separate and autonomous from the state. From what I can gather PIF, unusually for even a legally separate SWF, seems to have virtually nothing in the way of requirement to report back to government and since 2014 was granted the right to act completely independently. But, MbS and other ministers are on the board right, so the state must actually be in control? Well, ministers can have other interest and jobs. Although in this county ministers are expected to have that as their sole job, if they were director of a company that wouldn’t make it state controlled because it would be a separate role. Plenty of MPs are also company directors, that doesn’t mean those companies are state controlled. The state is really in control of everything right? They could just legislate or instruct PIF to do what they want so they’re really in control. Well, in this country they wouldn’t be because Section 251 of the Companies Act 2006 excludes government ministers from being considered to be shadow directors in such circumstances. I’m not arguing that we will definitely be successful in the arbitration, I might not be legally correct with the stuff above, just trying to make the point that it is very easy to make it sound a forgone conclusion taking in terms of common sense, but it is not that simple.

If there were no prospect of the deal being revived there would be absolutely no logical reason for the request for an injunction in the CAT case to change the PL's decision and there would be no reason to the club to go ahead with the arbitration.

I've hated the rule since we were knocked out of the UEFA Cup by Bilbao. Good riddance.

JP Morgan did. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/04/23/saudi-link-super-league-denied-jp-morgan-admit4bn-plot-misjudged/amp/

Not when they have explicitly asked for a decision to be made (which Staveley has said they did) and by refusing to make a decision the PL denied them the right to appeal. I deal with decision making processes that are in some distant ways similar in my job, if I were to act the way the PL have, refusing to make a decision and so denying the right of appeal, I would get absolutely torn apart by the ombudsman that regulates what I do. I see both sides of the argument in terms of the KSA being in control of the club. I'm probably about 50/50 on which way that argument will go (although I'm more confident that the PL will settle before it gets to that). But there's just no argument that the PL have behaved correctly in how they've gone about the decision making process.

That was a made up story that was instantly discredited. I wouldn't have any effect anyway because the legal issue is whether or not the KSA would control the club, that would have no impact upon whether they control the club or not, even if it weren't made up bollocks.

You haven't read the O&D test properly then, see F.1.1.1. The PL absolutely could and should have made a formal decision on that basis.

Nope, 'The Premier League wanted the country, Saudi, to become a director of the football club,' Staveley told The Athletic.

Actually, it's not about shadow directorships, that's something different, it's about 'control' as defined in the PL's rules. And it's not MbS that the PL are saying would be in 'control', it's the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Ultimately no one on this board is qualified or has the information before them to give a legal opinion on the whether the KSA would be in control of NUFC for the purposes of the definition in the rules. Least of all someone who doesn't get those crucial details correct. Both sides appear confident in their positions (although the PL side not confident to actually made a formal decision and defend an appeal on that basis). We will probably find out one way or the other in around August.

Dominic Cummings (I assume) also leaked Boris Jonson's conversation with Lord Lister on 7th September: Boris Johnson: “Any news from Saudi?” Lord Lister: “A call is being set up. “The Newcastle deal [with the Saudi consortium] will hopefully be signed this week.” Boris Johnson: “Brilliant.”

But it was more than a month between the PL coming to their conclusion over the ownership and PIF withdrawing, in which time Staveley has said they asked for a formal decision to be made and the PL refused to make one.

Ben Jacobs knows nothing but what he is fed from the PL's side. He has a highly questionable past, reportedly getting banned from working for the BBC for life. I think the only reasons Wraith has him on the show are mutual self promotion of possibly in the hope that he'll trip up and say something that can be linked to leaks from the PL.

Ashley would hold all of the cards in a settlement negotiation, these cases are zero risk for him. Settling the arbitration in the club's favour would be the absolute starting point, because that's the only leverage the PL would have, the negotiation would probably be about how much money the PL have to pay on top of that to get out of the CAT case.

Yeah, there's a chance of that too. Personally I think the arbitration case is the important one, that'll be done well before the CAT case and if the club lose that there'll probably not be much of a CAT case. The noises we've had are that the club and consortium are very confident in their case in the arbitration (the PL likewise but, again, why not make a formal decision?) However, there will always be a certain level of doubt, so they'll want to put as much pressure as possible on the PL to settle beforehand. That's what the CAT case does, without any real risk to Ashley. It also gives him the opportunity of vengeance if the PL don't settle and lose the arbitration, and we all know what a vengeful cunt he is.

They're not going to bring a case that's not supported by case law, Barristers are walking encyclopedias of case law and experts at fitting pieces of case law to suit their argument, that's what they get paid a lot of money to do. It won't be a simple as there being one identical case that is entirely relied on. Also, new case law is regularly established, how would that happen without judges making decisions on matters that aren't fully covered by existing case law or reinterpreting / contradicting previous case law?

That's why I think there is a reasonable chance the PL will settle if their challenge fails. Even if they are 95% certain they'll win both the arbitration and CAT cases, that 5% chance would have huge consequences both for the PL and personally for the board. Whereas, it's risk free for Ashley, already paid for by the deposit. If the PL go through with the arbitration and lose, they would no longer have any leverage to get out of the CAT case. There's also no chance that the PL are really 95% confident in winning the arbitration. If that were the case they would have just made a formal decision last June, allowed the club to appeal that decision and it would have been wrapped up one way or the other long ago.

The deadline for disclosure in the arbitration is today (if the arbitration tribunal agreed to the extension the PL requested, otherwise it was earlier this month). But the arbitration is confidential so I would expect us to hear anything from that anyway.

Obviously you’re far more qualified than me to give an opinion on this but, as far as I understand it, if the club is deemed to have broken that rule the consequence would potentially be disciplinary action via the disciplinary procedures set out in the rules. The PL’s rules could not restrict the jurisdiction of the CAT or otherwise remove rights of access to other forms of legal process (unless there were a specific statutory provision for allowing the removal of such rights).

I don't think anyone outside of the process knows exactly what the effect of it being expedited is. We know from the High Court judgement that the arbitration is following the PL's process but the arbitration rules in the PL handbook are pretty vague and don't shed any light on how an expedited process would be different.

Actually it's St James Holdings Limited V the PL.

I can't see how that could affect the jurisdiction of the CAT. That would be like a rule saying the clubs should only report criminal offences the PL, not the police. Even if would breach the rule it wouldn't affect the jurisdiction of the police to investigate. I also think it would probably be an unfair contract term if used in that way to preclude access to the CAT.

That's just the deadline for the submission of the PL's jurisdiction case, I think it'll be at least a couple weeks after that before we hear whether it's been successful or not. It's probably going to be very quiet for the next month at least.

They're currently challenging jurisdiction, that is a get out of jail free card for them if it's successful. It wouldn't make much sense for them to settle until after the outcome of the jurisdiction challenge is known, but it would make a lot of sense for them to settle at that point if the challenge is not successful.

Exactly, I think even if the arbitration panel and the judge in the CAT case determine that the conclusion of the PL in relation to control was sound, there is possibly still a case there. The PL's actions in delaying and refusing to make a formal decision could potentially be shown to have been influenced in an anticompetitive way. The club could probably argue that there was financial harm from that, e.g. there were other potential buyers but the consortium had exclusivity while the test was ongoing, by the time that ended the clubs value had fallen and those other buyers were no longer interested. Ultimately I think the CAT case is mostly about putting huge pressure on the PL to settle the arbitration. If they go through with arbitration they're now facing not just potentially £100m+ costs but Masters and Hoffman possibly losing their ability to make a living as company directors. Whether the PL are confident of their case or not, there will always be some level of doubt and that is a lot to have hanging over them when they could just settle and make it go away.