Positive Optimism - Saudi Takeover Edition

[Whitley mag]

3 minutes ago, Chris_R said:

Everyone who ever launches a legal case thinks they've got good evidence and a high chance of success.

Some of them lose. There's nothing to suggest that cannot happen to us, yet everyone in here is talking in such certainty about our impending court case victory. It's just bonkers.

I hope we win. We might very well win. But we haven't won, and we might well lose. That's the honest state of play that loads of you are refusing to even acknowledge. This is not a foregone conclusion, no matter how confident any of the parties are.

Why would anyone accept the possibility of losing in the positivity thread. If the confidence is misplaced so be it, but everything I hear and read makes me confident at present.

[Chris_R]

Quote

I find it so strange how threatened some people are with this thread. Everyone is just chatting away all fine, no problems, thinking big and looking forward to the takeover, enjoying reading the tweets and stuff. Then every now and again, someone comes in full of hell, having a go at all in here  It’s so fucking odd.

Nobody's full of hell, I'm incredibly happy as it happens. It just feels like I've stumbled into a flat-Earth society meeting or some kind of "Covid is caused by 5G" thread.

Be optimistic, sure, but maybe just don't be utterly delusional? Acknowledge there's actually a chance of things not working as you want them to, rather than pretending with utter conviction that there's 0 chance of it not. Because I genuinely worry for some people in here if things DON'T work out, because they're that high up on whatever they're smoking that they're going to have a hell of a fall back to Earth.

There's a massive difference between optimism and crazy. But sure, I'll let you all get back to it. Enjoy.

 

 

Edited May 9, 2021 by Chris_R

[Rosenrot]

1 minute ago, Rosenrot said:

That is contempt of court and is very serious. This isn't a TV show.

To put it into perspective, the PL will have to put together a disclosure statement listing all relevant documents, noting any they believe they have a right to withhold from inspection. That statement is backed up with a statement of truth stating that the list is accurate. Lying in that statement is contempt of court and is potentially an imprisonable offence.

Furthermore the opposing party can request disclosure and inspection of specific documents, known as specific disclosure. "We wish to see X diary entry on X date", for example. If the PL turn around and say "I'm sorry but that entry appears to be deleted", the judge may, and probably will, draw negative inferences from that.

[Chris_R]

6 minutes ago, Rosenrot said:

That is contempt of court and is very serious. This isn't a TV show.

It's not contempt to do it before a court orders you to hand over the data.

If you have something issued to you asking you to hand over things, and then you delete them, that's a problem. But if you suspect you've been naughty and think things might be about to stir up, and you delete things early, that's not illegal at all. Since we've all suspected for a long time that court cases are impending, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the PL would pre-emptively engage in a bit of "housekeeping".

[Guest reefatoon]

Thanks to the update from Chris, we should now add the premier league’s delete button to our shit list along with Bein, the top 6, Qatar, Richard Keys and Masters.

[FloydianMag]

Worth a read.

 

https://www.ibblaw.co.uk/service/commercial-dispute-resolution/evidence-civil-disputes

[Candi_Hills]

1 hour ago, Chris_R said:

I am an IT specialist.

It'll be easy to retrieve data if the PL are idiots and do a half-assed job of deleting stuff. If they take deletion seriously, it'll be impossible.

How do you delete stuff properly? Asking for a friend.

 

[Rosenrot]

4 minutes ago, Chris_R said:

It's not contempt to do it before a court orders you to hand over the data.

If you have something issued to you asking you to hand over things, and then you delete them, that's a problem. But if you suspect you've been naughty and think things might be about to stir up, and you delete things early, that's not illegal at all. Since we've all suspected for a long time that court cases are impending, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the PL would pre-emptively engage in a bit of "housekeeping".

You still have to disclose them, you just have to object to inspection on the grounds they have been destroyed, which the judge will take into account. It looks mightily suspicious if every relevant document has been destroyed prior to disclosure.

[Chris_R]

Just now, Rosenrot said:

It looks mightily suspicious if every relevant document has been destroyed prior to disclosure.

Of course it does. But "Looking suspicious" isn't a crime.

[Rosenrot]

I can imagine if emails and boardroom minutes were left off a disclosure statement, they will be the first things asked for by NUFC as part of a specific disclosure application.

"Sorry you can't have those minutes we normally keep for 5 years because they've accidentally been deleted" is not going to wash.

 

 

Edited May 9, 2021 by Rosenrot

[Rosenrot]

Just now, Chris_R said:

Of course it does. But "Looking suspicious" isn't a crime.

This isn't a criminal case. It's a civil case. It's balance of probabilities. If you've deleted every single relevant document, it starts to look, on the balance of probabilities, that you've done something wrong.

[1964]

There is no way the PL have been sufficiently diligent on their housekeeping to delete all incriminating stuff, their arrogance tells you that.

Plus, if they are asking their IT people to get rid of stuff after the legal challenge they are asking them to break the law, for what?  The IT specialists aren't going to put their career and possible liberty at stake because someone like Masters asks them.  They wouldn't do it, and the potential for whistleblowing would be enormous.  How would they ensure its kept quiet?  Would you ind breaking the law and keeping it quiet please...  I doubt it

Thirdly, if there is a Maoist day zero where no files exist prior to that date it's pretty damning for them.

I'm not suggesting that the takeover will be passed either as I'm a bit of a pessimist where Newcastle are concerned but the idea that data can vanish without a lot of work is fanciful

I'm not an IT expert but I am a data expert 

[Chris_R]

3 minutes ago, Candi_Hills said:

How do you delete stuff properly? Asking for a friend.

 

What do you - sorry, your friend - want to delete?

Ccleaner is pretty good for PCs, and OK for most uses. But the only absolutely sure way is to delete what you don't want then copy everything over to a brand-new drive using something like Macrium Reflect, and physically destroy the old drive. Like, melt it in a furnace or something haha, or lob it over the side of a ferry in the middle of the Atlantic.

[Rosenrot]

3 minutes ago, 1964 said:

There is no way the PL have been sufficiently diligent on their housekeeping to delete all incriminating stuff, their arrogance tells you that.

Plus, if they are asking their IT people to get rid of stuff after the legal challenge they are asking them to break the law, for what?  The IT specialists aren't going to put their career and possible liberty at stake because someone like Masters asks them.  They wouldn't do it, and the potential for whistleblowing would be enormous.  How would they ensure its kept quiet?  Would you ind breaking the law and keeping it quiet please...  I doubt it

Thirdly, if there is a Maoist day zero where no files exist prior to that date it's pretty damning for them.

I'm not suggesting that the takeover will be passed either as I'm a bit of a pessimist where Newcastle are concerned but the idea that data can vanish without a lot of work is fanciful

I'm not an IT expert but I am a data expert 

It's also self defeating. NUFC present evidence that at meeting X the PL said Y. The PL could easily refute that by providing the minutes of meeting X but oh look, conveniently they've been deleted. The judge will simply side with NUFC unless the PL can prove otherwise.

[1964]

That works if it's stored locally, chances are it's cloud based and backed up, so deleting from a particular date might not wash.

Plus they should have retention policies under GDPR, therefore their documents should not be deleted prior to their deletion date unless there is a valid and documented reason for doing so.  

[Chris_R]

3 minutes ago, Rosenrot said:

This isn't a criminal case. It's a civil case. It's balance of probabilities. If you've deleted every single relevant document, it starts to look, on the balance of probabilities, that you've done something wrong.

You just delete the incriminating bits. You don't delete all your meetings, you just delete the meetings where you talked about blocking the takeover.

"Can we see all the meetings where you talked about the takeover?"

"Sorry there weren't any".

Sure there's a decent chance they fuck this up, but to suggest they won't even try is crazy. Of course they will. Companies do this kind of shit all the time in court cases. History is replete with suspiciously-timed server fires, or convenient hardware refreshes.

[Scoot]

22 minutes ago, Chris_R said:

Nobody's full of hell, I'm incredibly happy as it happens. It just feels like I've stumbled into a flat-Earth society meeting or some kind of "Covid is caused by 5G" thread.

Be optimistic, sure, but maybe just don't be utterly delusional? Acknowledge there's actually a chance of things not working as you want them to, rather than pretending with utter conviction that there's 0 chance of it not. Because I genuinely worry for some people in here if things DON'T work out, because they're that high up on whatever they're smoking that they're going to have a hell of a fall back to Earth.

There's a massive difference between optimism and crazy. But sure, I'll let you all get back to it. Enjoy.

Says the chap who's negative in every post he makes. Works both ways and all that...

[Chris_R]

1 minute ago, Scoot said:

Says the chap who's negative in every post he makes. Works both ways and all that...

I would love this takeover to go through, but I don't think it will. I've said that since day 1 and so far it hasn't gone through so I guess I'm not totally wide of the mark?

[Candi_Hills]

I hope evidence of big 6 collusion is the best thing they find on Hoffman and Masters' computers.

[Rosenrot]

2 minutes ago, Chris_R said:

You just delete the incriminating bits. You don't delete all your meetings, you just delete the meetings where you talked about blocking the takeover.

"Can we see all the meetings where you talked about the takeover?"

"Sorry there weren't any".

Sure there's a decent chance they fuck this up, but to suggest they won't even try is crazy. Of course they will. Companies do this kind of shit all the time in court cases. History is replete with suspiciously-timed server fires, or convenient hardware refreshes.

I think you've watched too many movies.

[Scoot]

1 minute ago, Chris_R said:

I would love this takeover to go through, but I don't think it will. I've said that since day 1 and so far it hasn't gone through so I guess I'm not totally wide of the mark?

I just find negative people a bit odd. Sorry.

[thomas]

Do not be troubled my friends.

I have heard the spirits speak.

The time of ascension is nigh.

[Rosenrot]

The fact is, the PL is such a high profile, yet small organisation that an at-scale evidence deletion exercise would be put those involved at huge personal risk and no law firm worth their salt would go near it if they knew in any case.

Solicitors are not allowed to get involved with stuff like this — they risk being struck off.

 

 

Edited May 9, 2021 by Rosenrot

[Joey Linton]

Chris is obviously the wrong sort of expert for this thread and should leave it to the real experts. 

[Chris_R]

Just now, Scoot said:

I just find negative people a bit odd. Sorry.

I'm not negative. I'd absolutely love this to go through. But wanting something doesn't make it any more likely to happen. I'm positive but realistic.

Also realism, or negativity if you prefer, is a psychological defence mechanism. For example, if I say something good won't happen and you say it will, then if it does I'll be happier than you because I'm surprised and am going from a lower base position too so see a bigger change in my mood whereas you just have your expectations confirmed that it the good thing did indeed happen just as you expected, that's not even really cause for celebration when you think about it?

On the flip side, if the good thing doesn't happen then I've got less distance to fall. My expectations are merely confirmed whereas you come crashing down.

Being negative, or realistic, actually makes you happier in the long-run.