PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

Centurions said:
You managed to pack a lot of nonsense into a relatively short post there.

The delay is due to the complexity (which may have been mentioned once or a hundred times). Stefan has always maintained that timescales are purely informed guesswork on his part.

Do you really think that the only evidence considered is 10 or a 100 emails?

"As far as we know there is not something setting" makes no sense.

Your last line is just laugable.
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Also the way they kept changing the ffp rules means different years mean different rules!
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
I'm not convinced that the substantive issues in this case were terribly complex in themselves, compared to other commercial legal cases.
  • Did Etihad and other properly fulfil their obligations under the commercial contracts? That's probably the biggest substantive issue but it isn't particularly complex.
  • Are Etihad & Manchester City related parties under the relevant accounting standards? 2 or 3 days to cover that maybe.
  • Was Fordham a deliberate device to conceal relevant expenses. We know why we set up the Fordham arrangement and either declared Fordham payments as part of player remuneration or we didn't, plus we had discussions about this with UEFA, who seemingly didn't have a problem.
  • The Mancini contract - was it a sham to hide expenses or did he fulfil it. It's not material in any case, and will possibly be time barred anyway, so I doubt much time was spent on it.
CAS dealt with the Etihad sponsorship issues in less than 2 days so I'd be surprised if we spent much more than 3 or 4 of the 10 weeks of the hearing on these issues. What probably took the bulk of the time I'd guess were the legal arguments over things like admissibility of evidence, limitation periods, elements of the process itself and how it had been applied, as well as other matters.

While there probably a huge number of documents delivered as a result of the discovery process, there's no guarantee that every single one will have been produced to support the pleadings during the 10 weeks.

The criminal case against my old bosses at Independent Insurance involved complex issues of insurance, reinsurance, claims reserving and other related matters, along with huge numbers of documents. But to make the case as simple as possible for the non-technical jury, the prosecution team whittled those documents down dramatically for evidence purposes. The vast majority weren't used in court.
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We don’t know when they asked for files on somethings we didn’t give them 50 boxes of nothingness?! Or have I watched to many tv shows!? ;)
 
bluemanchester said:
Didn't the PL demnd all emails, whatsapp and text messages from City and we in turn demanded all theirs. Then less than two years down the line Levy and Lewis, the main men in bringing the charges, leave their positions. A direct line between the release of the messages, exposing a bombshell at the hearing, and Levy and Lewis going and scruffy jim backtracking after employing Berrada.
After 6611 pages of guesses by everyone on here how does this one rate.
A bit like Britains got talent for City supporters, we could call it,
The best of City Conspiracies
Episode 115 ;-)
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Stefan has said that he's had information that Levy's departure was unrelated to our case and I can believe that. The odd thing about was the timing, early in the season. If it was a natural cutting of the ties you'd imagine he'd have done this at the end of the previous one. But it could well be there was a falling out with the Lewis family.

The Lewis one is more interesting as he was described as the leading voice at PL meetings about state ownership and associated parties. However he doesn't seem to have been too popular with his colleagues at Arsenal and was seen as too arrogant and not collaborative. Possibly his well-publicised storming off at the Etihad was a factor in the decision to remove him from his position. He was offered a non-executive position but that could be seen as a sop or, if there was a falling out of some sort, something they knew he wouldn't take anyway.
 
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Prestwich_Blue said:
I'm not convinced that the substantive issues in this case were terribly complex in themselves, compared to other commercial legal cases.
  • Did Etihad and other properly fulfil their obligations under the commercial contracts? That's probably the biggest substantive issue but it isn't particularly complex.
  • Are Etihad & Manchester City related parties under the relevant accounting standards? 2 or 3 days to cover that maybe.
  • Was Fordham a deliberate device to conceal relevant expenses. We know why we set up the Fordham arrangement and either declared Fordham payments as part of player remuneration or we didn't, plus we had discussions about this with UEFA, who seemingly didn't have a problem.
  • The Mancini contract - was it a sham to hide expenses or did he fulfil it. It's not material in any case, and will possibly be time barred anyway, so I doubt much time was spent on it.
CAS dealt with the Etihad sponsorship issues in less than 2 days so I'd be surprised if we spent much more than 3 or 4 of the 10 weeks of the hearing on these issues. What probably took the bulk of the time I'd guess were the legal arguments over things like admissibility of evidence, limitation periods, elements of the process itself and how it had been applied, as well as other matters.

While there probably a huge number of documents delivered as a result of the discovery process, there's no guarantee that every single one will have been produced to support the pleadings during the 10 weeks.

The criminal case against my old bosses at Independent Insurance involved complex issues of insurance, reinsurance, claims reserving and other related matters, along with huge numbers of documents. But to make the case as simple as possible for the non-technical jury, the prosecution team whittled those documents down dramatically for evidence purposes. The vast majority weren't used in court.
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Bright, Condon & Lomas....

Sounds like a law firm ! The irony..... ;-)
 
slbsn said:
I checked btw. Jaffa case was 2 days of submissions. Don't think it is a proxy at all for a 10 week quasi fraud hearing.

[1991] Lexis Citation 995
TRIBUNAL CENTRE: LONDON
LOCATION: SITTING IN PUBLIC AT 15-19 BEDFORD AVENUE,LONDON WC1B 3AS
CASE REFERENCE NUMBER: (LON/91/160)
TRIBUNAL CHAIRMAN: D POTTER
DATE: THURSDAY THE 13 JUNE AND TUESDAY THE 30 JULY 1991
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It may be a silly question but is there any scope in this type of hearing for people who are subject to severe criticism to receive advance warning and a chance to respond similar to Maxwellisation in government enquiries ?
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
I'm not convinced that the substantive issues in this case were terribly complex in themselves, compared to other commercial legal cases.
  • Did Etihad and other AD sponsors properly fulfil their obligations under the commercial contracts? That's probably the biggest substantive issue but it isn't particularly complex. Unless the PL can show, on the balance of probabilities, that they didn't then we win that one.
  • Are Etihad & Manchester City related parties under the relevant accounting standards? 2 or 3 days to cover that maybe.
  • Was Fordham a deliberate device to conceal relevant expenses. We know why we set up the Fordham arrangement and either declared Fordham payments as part of player remuneration or we didn't, plus we had discussions about this with UEFA, who seemingly didn't have a problem.
  • The Mancini contract - was it a sham to hide expenses or did he fulfil it. It's not material in any case, and will possibly be time barred anyway, so I doubt much time was spent on it.
CAS dealt with the Etihad sponsorship issues in less than 2 days so I'd be surprised if we spent much more than 3 or 4 of the 10 weeks of the hearing on these issues. What probably took the bulk of the time I'd guess were the legal arguments over things like admissibility of evidence, limitation periods, elements of the process itself and how it had been applied, as well as other matters.

While there probably a huge number of documents delivered as a result of the discovery process, there's no guarantee that every single one will have been produced to support the pleadings during the 10 weeks.

The criminal case against my old bosses at Independent Insurance involved complex issues of insurance, reinsurance, claims reserving and other related matters, along with huge numbers of documents. But to make the case as simple as possible for the non-technical jury, the prosecution team whittled those documents down dramatically for evidence purposes. The vast majority weren't used in court.
Click to expand...
It's always important to remember that the primary function of the British legal system is to enrich the legal profession.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
Stefan has said that he's had information that Levy's departure was unrelated to our case and I can believe that. The odd thing about was the timing, early in the season. If it was a natural cutting of the ties you'd imagine he'd have done this at the end of the previous one. But it could well be there was a falling out with the Lewis family.

The Lewis one is more interesting as he was described as the leading voice at PL meetings about state ownership and associated parties. However he doesn't seem to have been too popular with his colleagues at Arsenal and was seen as too arrogant and not collaborative. Possibly his well-publicised storming off at the Etihad was a factor in the decision to remove him from his position. He was offered a non-executive position but that could be seen as a sop or, if there was a falling out of some sort, something they knew he wouldn't take anyway.
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Is that your audition for
City Conspiracies
Episode 115.
We will have to wait and see if Simon and his panel give you a yes vote before you can progress to the Grand Final, which is imminent ;-)
 
St Helens Blue (Exiled) said:
You know in all of this. Let us say we were found guilty of serious charges and they relegated us or deducted a lot of points which guaranteed our relegation, may I ask one question to all.

1 - Will it diminish your love for Manchester City because I know for fucking sure it wont mine!!

I will love my club till my last breath and whatever happens it doesn't really matter
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id love them more for sticking it up the red cunts
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
Stefan has said that he's had information that Levy's departure was unrelated to our case and I can believe that. The odd thing about was the timing, early in the season. If it was a natural cutting of the ties you'd imagine he'd have done this at the end of the previous one. But it could well be there was a falling out with the Lewis family.

The Lewis one is more interesting as he was described as the leading voice at PL meetings about state ownership and associated parties. However he doesn't seem to have been too popular with his colleagues at Arsenal and was seen as too arrogant and not collaborative. Possibly his well-publicised storming off at the Etihad was a factor in the decision to remove him from his position. He was offered a non-executive position but that could be seen as a sop or, if there was a falling out of some sort, something they knew he wouldn't take anyway.
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The old saying in my working days was that a cantankerous employee had a strange way of handing in his resignation.

Certainly at highest level the need for that person to be no longer associated with the Club means he can choose his own reason to resign you just need him gone.
 
halfcenturyup said:
And it was a scripted interview, it's not off-the-cuff. It's possible he changed "we'll sit down" to "we'll have a wonderful sit-down" spontaneously but that doesn't change the fact that the latter is purposely much more positive than the former. I used to write bullshit like that and I maintain it was a deliberate choice to give a deliberate message.

He chooses his words carefully. He has to in his role and, while a scripted interview with City has fewer global consequences than a meeting with Trump or Putin, of course, the mindset is the same, imho. It all affects reputation.
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Media training aims to help you avoid going out on an exposed limb.

Khaldoon will be a master of avoiding such sensitive areas, as he no doubt has to be when dealing with moves and deals that impact stock markets to the tune of billions…

So when he says stuff like this…especially on in-house content that is reviewed and edited for hygiene purposes… you can bet your bottom dollar it’s fully intended…
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
Stefan has said that he's had information that Levy's departure was unrelated to our case and I can believe that. The odd thing about was the timing, early in the season. If it was a natural cutting of the ties you'd imagine he'd have done this at the end of the previous one. But it could well be there was a falling out with the Lewis family.

The Lewis one is more interesting as he was described as the leading voice at PL meetings about state ownership and associated parties. However he doesn't seem to have been too popular with his colleagues at Arsenal and was seen as too arrogant and not collaborative. Possibly his well-publicised storming off at the Etihad was a factor in the decision to remove him from his position. He was offered a non-executive position but that could be seen as a sop or, if there was a falling out of some sort, something they knew he wouldn't take anyway.
Click to expand...
The much more likely conclusion is that people just thought he was a bit of a twat/pain in the arse.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
I'm not convinced that the substantive issues in this case were terribly complex in themselves, compared to other commercial legal cases.
  • Did Etihad and other AD sponsors properly fulfil their obligations under the commercial contracts? That's probably the biggest substantive issue but it isn't particularly complex. Unless the PL can show, on the balance of probabilities, that they didn't then we win that one.
  • Are Etihad & Manchester City related parties under the relevant accounting standards? 2 or 3 days to cover that maybe.
  • Was Fordham a deliberate device to conceal relevant expenses. We know why we set up the Fordham arrangement and either declared Fordham payments as part of player remuneration or we didn't, plus we had discussions about this with UEFA, who seemingly didn't have a problem.
  • The Mancini contract - was it a sham to hide expenses or did he fulfil it. It's not material in any case, and will possibly be time barred anyway, so I doubt much time was spent on it.
CAS dealt with the Etihad sponsorship issues in less than 2 days so I'd be surprised if we spent much more than 3 or 4 of the 10 weeks of the hearing on these issues. What probably took the bulk of the time I'd guess were the legal arguments over things like admissibility of evidence, limitation periods, elements of the process itself and how it had been applied, as well as other matters.

While there probably a huge number of documents delivered as a result of the discovery process, there's no guarantee that every single one will have been produced to support the pleadings during the 10 weeks.

The criminal case against my old bosses at Independent Insurance involved complex issues of insurance, reinsurance, claims reserving and other related matters, along with huge numbers of documents. But to make the case as simple as possible for the non-technical jury, the prosecution team whittled those documents down dramatically for evidence purposes. The vast majority weren't used in court.
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I accept I must stop myself but here we go.

Firstly something like at least £100m of cost has been expended so far - litigation is expensive but this is already one of the costliest disputes in British legal history. There is a very good chance it will end as the costliest dispute ever in British history. That in itself is the end of the story on complexity.

But even if you want to go on, we don't know the full list of issues but rest assured you haven't covered them all there nor are they as simple as you assert. There was an extraordinarily large set of barristers on both sides to cover all the issues and all the witnesses. There is therefore undeniably a huge amount of ground to traverse in the hearing.

Of course not every document in disclosure is in play in the hearing. But the bundle will still have been hundreds of thousands of pages long. Simple cases don't take 10 weeks. Jury trial experience is, frankly, totally irrelevant - this is just not the same audience for the evidence or the level of complexity that will be presented.

It is also complex because it combines commercial agreements, accounting practice, cash movements, potentially accounting standards, potentially valuations, multi year breaches and therefore questions of intepretation as to rules in any given year, forensic accounting, witness evidence across multiple companies on and on. It is so obviously a complex case.
 
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Plays By Sense Of Smell said:
Media training aims to help you avoid going out on an exposed limb.

Khaldoon will be a master of avoiding such sensitive areas, as he no doubt has to be when dealing with moves and deals that impact stock markets to the tune of billions…

So when he says stuff like this…especially on in-house content that is reviewed and edited for hygiene purposes… you can bet your bottom dollar it’s fully intended…
Click to expand...
He will also be well aware that if he ends up being wrong, what he said to the in-house TV channel in an end of season chat will be completely irrelevant and lost in the storm.
 
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