The Administration Thread

[atherstoneram]

51 minutes ago, ilkleyram said:

Agreed.  But Mel - who still continues to have a substantial stake in the club, by owning the ground (and I know that there are different views on that) - not only was the club at the time that the 'offences' were allegedly committed, he is also now offering to be 'the club' again with regard to this one/two claim(s) only. 

He has effectively said to M/WW - if you are truthful in your wish to see DCFC continue in action, if you want your case to be heard in a neutral arena, if you want to win financial recompense to meet the damages you say has been caused by my action as owner of DCFC, then sue me in the HC and if I lose I will pay the damages awarded.

He's also saying that the claim/proposed claim are holding up the takeover process and that he doesn't trust the internal football processes to give him a fair hearing that he will get in a non-football setting.  Given his experiences so far and that he would have to be a significant part of any arbitration case given that he was the owner and decision maker at the time, you can't blame him from wanting nothing to do with a LAP run by the EFL.

Incidentally, whilst we presume that Mel's statement/offer was known in advance by Q, we don't know that was the case.  Nor do we know Q's view of it. A question for the supporters' groups tonight perhaps

With the club being in administration i very much doubt that MM can be "the club" again, he relinquished that option when he placed the club in administration. Even if they were to accept the "offer" there is nothing to still stop them chasing the club.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Eatonram said:

@Brailsford Ram is there no legal process where Mel could apply to have the claims heard at the HC(due to the obvious time issues affecting DCFC) which compels Boro/WW either to make their case or drop their case?? It seems strange that there is no process. Boro could basically just leave the claim there, unresolved, for another year? 2 ?

No Eaton, I do not think that Mel himself can force the issue to the High Court. There is no claim against him personally as yet. It is up to Gibson and Ironside (I struggle with his real name) to accept Mel's very generous offer of absolving his limited liability before the High Court can accept it for hearing.

[Ram-Alf]

31 minutes ago, TooFarInToTurnRed said:

Are you sure Wycombe have actually had any legal advice? I understood that they have not filed any formal proceedings at all but have just sent a ‘Letter before action’ which will have cost virtually nothing.

Potential costs of any sort of proceedings either through EFL or Courts would I suspect would make them reappraise. Contrary to popular belief I think most decent lawyers would tell their client honestly if they did not have a case and even refuse representation if they adamantly felt they would lose. They wouldn’t just pursue it for a payday. 

WWs owner Moonpig is a USA lawyer, I do not know if he's aware of the differences with UK law and USA law, He's been trumpeting some sort of jargon which only he can decipher.

Or he could have read on the back of a box of cornflakes?‍♂️, Nothing of any legal substance has been served by him that we're aware of, He's just a make weight in this process imo

[ollycutts1982]

12 minutes ago, Ram a lamb a ding dong said:

I am still astounded by the level of incompetence from all concerned.

I would love to sit round a table with all 0f them and find out their spin on things. I'm 99% concerned I would walk pit shaking my head on disbelief.

The EFL are an absolute disgrace

Gibbon, Cohig are parasites with mo morals

MM..............

I have said it before and will continue to do so. The EFL have Peter Ridsdale on their board. The same Peter Ridsdale who was banned from being a director of any company from 2012-2020 for siphoning £350k into his personal bank account not a business account. 

The EFL ladies and gentlemen, rotten to the core. 

[Ram a lamb a ding dong]

Didn't he fork 0ut thousands on plants at Leeds??

[TomG]

2 minutes ago, Ram a lamb a ding dong said:

Didn't he fork 0ut thousands on plants at Leeds??

There is plenty of plant life at Leeds!

[ilkleyram]

33 minutes ago, Jimbo Ram said:

Because it is total nonsense, that's the main reason.....

It might be. But until either that is determined in the HC or some kind of EFL arbitration set up or until one side backs down, we're stuck with the fact that at least 2 and probably three of the four parties involved don't think that it is nonsense.

The quicker we get to the point of decision (or even to agreeing how we get to that point) the more likely DCFC is to survive

[jimtastic56]

1 hour ago, TooFarInToTurnRed said:

Are you sure Wycombe have actually had any legal advice? I understood that they have not filed any formal proceedings at all but have just sent a ‘Letter before action’ which will have cost virtually nothing.

Potential costs of any sort of proceedings either through EFL or Courts would I suspect would make them reappraise. Contrary to popular belief I think most decent lawyers would tell their client honestly if they did not have a case and even refuse representation if they adamantly felt they would lose. They wouldn’t just pursue it for a payday. 

Cohig does not have to take legal advice as he has spent all his life in the legal profession. Radio Derby gave him an hour to explain why he thinks he has a very good case.I bet he is also “Acting” for Boro in all this.

[RoyMac5]

 

[Ram-Alf]

3 minutes ago, jimtastic56 said:

Cohig does not have to take legal advice as he has spent all his life in the legal profession. Radio Derby gave him an hour to explain why he thinks he has a very good case.I bet he is also “Acting” for Boro in all this.

UK law and USA are different, His rantings on radio Derby were just that rantings, You may be right with him representing Boro, As their statements are shockingly put forward.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, ollycutts1982 said:

I have said it before and will continue to do so. The EFL have Peter Ridsdale on their board. The same Peter Ridsdale who was banned from being a director of any company from 2012-2020 for siphoning £350k into his personal bank account not a business account. 

The EFL ladies and gentlemen, rotten to the core. 

I agree absolutely but I think Seth Johnson may take a much more lenient view of Ridsdale than we do. When Derby accepted Leeds' offer for Seth, he drove straight up to Elland Road with his agent. Seth was on £7k a week at Derby. On the way up, his agent told him that he would try to negotiate for up to £14k a week at Leeds. On arrival at Elland Road, the receptionist told them to go straight up to the board room where Mr Ridsdale was awaiting them.

They walked straight in to find Ridsdale with the prepared contract on the table. Ridsdale greeted them by saying "Gentlemen, the offer is £37k a week for four and a half years, is that okay?. Seth was fearful of causing himself an injury as he raced to the table to pick up the pen and sign."

When Leeds went bust, Ridsale's mitigation was that he was a fan living the dream which Mel has echoed himself since it all  went wrong for us.

When Ken Bates took over he fumed at the fact that Seth was prepared to see out his contract in Leeds reserve team which he did until he returned to us on a Bosman. I heard Seth telling that story in a pub at Mickleover when he returned to play for us.

I wonder if Mel has any pretensions of ruling the roost in the EFL at some time in the future?

??

[Ghost of Clough]

EFL Regulations
Appendix 5 part 1, section 4.4 and 4.5
Have the regulations since been updated for this season and they're now 4.3 and 4.4... or has 4.5 been removed? Either way:

1. This section is specifically relating to P&S.
2. This section states only the EFL have the right to bring action against a club

It seriously begs the question why the EFL haven't stepped in?

 

Unrelated, but I also stumbled across this which I assume was added after Spy-gate.

I wonder if anyone sends scouts to hide in bushes more than 72 hours before any games.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Ghost of Clough

[duncanjwitham]

There seems to be some misunderstanding of the EFL's position on all of this.  So, to my understanding this is where they stand...

1. Any disputes between clubs have to go through arbitration, no independent legal action against each other of anything.
2. The EFL do not get actively involved in arbitration, other than setting the basic ground rules. They don't review claims, block illegal claims or anything. They want to be completely independent of it all.
3. If claims are illegal (i.e. against EFL rules), unfounded or whatever, that's a matter for the arbitration panel to decide at the time, not the EFL beforehand.
4. Any financial awards resulting from arbitration are football debts.
5. All football debts must be paid to exit administration and remain a league member.
6. Claims cannot be squashed out of existence (or anything similar) as a result of exiting administration they need to be properly resolved through arbitration or settled/dropped outside of that.  Basically they don't want clubs to be able to escape from paying genuine football debts by insolvency policy trickery.

Not saying I agree with all of that, but I think that's what they're thinking.

[Guest]

At last! I have a Eureka moment by finally listening to something wholly sensible that Simon Jordan has to say. About Mel's offer, to the parasites and the EFL, he says this:

https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/mel-morris-Derby-gibson-jordan-6616193

[Mucker1884]

1 hour ago, TheresOnlyWanChope said:

Maybe we could get a deal. An ‘English’ or overseas division- can get Bury involved and anyone else. Obviously a crazy suggestion but still more palatable than joining some Asda league. 

AND... we might get chance to appear in the 7 leg World Series Finals!  Yeehah!  

[duncanjwitham]

10 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

EFL Regulations
Appendix 5 part 1, section 4.4 and 4.5
Have the regulation since been updated for this season and they're now 4.3 and 4.4... or has 4.5 been removed?

 

I've just checked archive.org - it's always been 4.3 and 4.4, there's never been a 4.5 as far as I can see.  It must be a slight mistake in Morris's statement (I assume that's what you're referring to?).

[Ghost of Clough]

13 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

There seems to be some misunderstanding of the EFL's position on all of this.  So, to my understanding this is where they stand...

1. Any disputes between clubs have to go through arbitration, no independent legal action against each other of anything.
2. The EFL do not get actively involved in arbitration, other than setting the basic ground rules. They don't review claims, block illegal claims or anything. They want to be completely independent of it all.
3. If claims are illegal (i.e. against EFL rules), unfounded or whatever, that's a matter for the arbitration panel to decide at the time, not the EFL beforehand.
4. Any financial awards resulting from arbitration are football debts.
5. All football debts must be paid to exit administration and remain a league member.
6. Claims cannot be squashed out of existence (or anything similar) as a result of exiting administration they need to be properly resolved through arbitration or settled/dropped outside of that.  Basically they don't want clubs to be able to escape from paying genuine football debts by insolvency policy trickery.

Not saying I agree with all of that, but I think that's what they're thinking.

That's how it appears, but as the governing body for the League, it should be their responsibility to ensure the regulations are obeyed. In this instance blocked the claims.

[vonwright]

21 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

There seems to be some misunderstanding of the EFL's position on all of this.  So, to my understanding this is where they stand...

1. Any disputes between clubs have to go through arbitration, no independent legal action against each other of anything.
2. The EFL do not get actively involved in arbitration, other than setting the basic ground rules. They don't review claims, block illegal claims or anything. They want to be completely independent of it all.
3. If claims are illegal (i.e. against EFL rules), unfounded or whatever, that's a matter for the arbitration panel to decide at the time, not the EFL beforehand.
4. Any financial awards resulting from arbitration are football debts.
5. All football debts must be paid to exit administration and remain a league member.
6. Claims cannot be squashed out of existence (or anything similar) as a result of exiting administration they need to be properly resolved through arbitration or settled/dropped outside of that.  Basically they don't want clubs to be able to escape from paying genuine football debts by insolvency policy trickery.

Not saying I agree with all of that, but I think that's what they're thinking.

Think this is spot on. And while the EFL seems happy for us to go to High Court to challenge these principles (specifically 4, 5 and 6) what we really need is to deal with the claims themselves. 

If it is at all possible to take those claims out of the equation for potential buyers, that would be a huge forward step. Seems like Morris' offer would potentially do that - but it does need to be binding on him, and I don't know how you'd do that. As someone said above it would need some sort of guarantees from Morris. 

I'm not 100pc sure of the nature of the claims - ie are they claims for financial loss/damages under general law? Or specific EFL rules? And if so which ones? That's probably relevant to what the court could or could not do

Edited February 7, 2022 by vonwright

[Mucker1884]

1 hour ago, rammieib said:

 

Except I don't think the EFL will have the power to make the Boro/Wycombe claims go to the high court. Only the two clubs can accept that.

However - at the same time, the EFL haven't even bothered enforcing their own rule of clubs not being allowed to claim from each other.

It's not just about them not enforcing such a rule. 

They actually put the idea into Curly Sue's head... and I quote...

"Hey Curly, how about you forget about suing us, and you go straight to suing DCFC instead... Directly!  Deal?  Done?  Great!  Cheers!  Nice one, Curls"! 

In short... It was their idea! ?

#youcouldn'tmakeitup 

[TooFarInToTurnRed]

53 minutes ago, ilkleyram said:

Well WW's owner is meant to be a hot shot lawyer so he's probably given himself some advice.  They've also written a letter before action - I don't know about you, maybe you are a lawyer, but I hadn't heard of a LBA before all this started happening.  It certainly suggests that lawyers have been involved at WW somewhere along the line.

We know that M have had legal advice because the lawyer apparently isn't available until May which is causing some delay in proceedings.

My, somewhat jaundiced I accept, view of the legal profession is that there is always a lawyer willing to argue a case. I would accept that no lawyer will ever say to anyone - you are guaranteed to win.  Perhaps the M/WW lawyers have said that their chances are less than 50% but perhaps M/WW are happy to take those odds.

Whether we like it or not M do have a case.  We may not think it's a very good or strong one, we may well feel that the consequences to football will be catastrophic should their case prevail, but they do have a case.  How strong it is will ideally be tested in the HC so that we can move on in the meantime

Not a lawyer but have written a couple of LBA’s in my time! They don’t need to be anything special just set out what you think you are owed and why then give them 14 days to respond before taking legal action.

Strange thing to say that so adamantly that Middlesboro do have a case when nobody knows what would have happened if Derby spent less or Boro spent more. That season Sheff Utd got promoted with a much lower budget than most in the division I suspect.