City launch legal action against the Premier League | City win APT case (pg901)

[give it to gordon]

How the fuck can they expect to win a case when they couldn’t even list the charges correctly that they’ve been investigating…….

As soon as they were told they’d got that wrong, they should have known it’s beyond their capability.

Yea City should have said no the first charge sheet stands ! We can prove the grass was the correct height

 

[M18CTID]

Yes. Fwiw, I think it comes down to how Chelsea and Everton decide to vote. And there may well be he a handful of abstentions as this is all getting needlessly confrontational. If 6 other clubs abstain, then five against kills it in any case.

I am still amazed the PL are going ahead with it. They (or should I say the cartel) seem to be desperately trying to stop something really significant happening, imho.

It beggars belief that they’re going ahead. Why not wait until the full findings of the Trubunal and then draft rules around that?

 

[petrusha]

Credit to Villa for having the courage of their convictions and making their position clear in advance. In doing so, they offer a pleasing contrast with Ziegler's source, the snide, pusillanimous, weaselly, gutless little fucking shitbag who hides behind a cloak of anonymity while having his client journalist print poisonous and mendacious drivel such as the comment about Friday's vote being critical for the PL's future.

 

[halfcenturyup]

Will clubs be taking legal advice before voting or just relying on what the pl have told them ?

Find it odd that some lawyers would be advising their clients to vote for illegal rules. Or advising them to vote before the panel have announced its recommendations.

If they aren't sure what the legal position is, they shouldn't be voting, which is why there will be a few abstentions I think.

 

[Maly]

A punter is always at liberty to ignore the sensible advice they’ve been given!

Do you mean advice such as double bagging? Or is it a different type of punter you’re talking about?

 

[Vic]

Stefan has made the same point. The PL's evidence was clearly challenged by the club, that much is clearly stated in the judgment, as are the tribunal's reasons for accepting the PL's evidence. It seems however as though the club did not deploy every argument they might have: assuming that's right, they (the club) obviously had their own reasons for holding back on the challenge to the motivation. I wouldn't like to speculate on what they may have been - it might have been something as simple as a lack of time before the panel - but it does seem clear that they could have gone harder, further.

On your questions, there is a distinction between "void" and "voidable." The essential difference is that the latter is valid until set aside, the former is invalid from the inception. Whether a thing is void or merely voidable depends on what it is you have an issue with, and why.

In this case, it seems to me that the position is this. The tribunal found that the APT rules constituted a restriction on competition "by object." In competition law something can lawful for one of two reasons: "by object", namely the restriction was intended to have a particular effect, or "by effect", namely the restriction wasn't particularly designed to have that effect but the law of unintended consequences is at work. A good analogy exists in anti-discrimination law - for instance a regulation that is specifically directed a particular groups - women, LGBTQ+, BAME etc - would be directly discriminatory, that is discriminatory "by object" whereas something that was directed at (for instance) childcare provision would be discriminatory "by effect" because in practice childcare provision tends to be undertaken far more by women than by men.

In City's case, the ruling of the tribunal was that the APT rules were a restriction "by object." They were intended to have precisely the effect they did, and that effect was contrary to our competition law precisely because they allowed one form of owner subsidy and prohibited another. I personally don't see how rules that were intended to have an unlawful effect can be anything other than null and void from the get-go. So the answer to the first question is, IMHO FWIW, a very good one.

By contrast, I don't think there is any real prospect of challenging FFP. The reason the APT rules were found to be unlawful is not because the object of regulating the transactions between clubs playing in the PL and associated parties is unlawful in itself- neither was the previous regime which regulated transactions between clubs and related parties for that matter. But the way in which those rules were framed contravened the principle that if you are going to regulate in that manner, you don't do it in a way that favours some clubs but not others. I don't think FFP could be subjected to the same criticism.

I've not been following this of late. Re whether the APT rules are void, as the club says, have we not yet established why? It's in the Competition Act 1998, s.2.

If the rules are unlawful, the agreement or decision to introduce them is prohibited, and prohibited decisions are void.

Agreements or decisions that have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition are prohibited [s.2(1)(b)].

Any agreement or decision which is prohibited by subsection (1) is void. [s.2(4)].

It's a pity that the panel's decision didn't spell this out, or (given that it's contested) that the panel hasn't been asked whether their ruling that the rules are unlawful means that the rules are void.

 

[halfcenturyup]

Credit to Villa for having the courage of their convictions and making their position clear in advance. In doing so, they offer a pleasing contrast with Ziegler's source, the snide, pusillanimous, weaselly, gutless little fucking shitbag who hides behind a cloak of anonymity while having his client journalist print poisonous and mendacious drivel such as the comment about Friday's vote being critical for the PL's future.

You don't like Liverpool executives much, do you?

 

[give it to gordon]

I've not been following this of late. Re whether the APT rules are void, as the club says, have we not yet established why? It's in the Competition Act 1998, s.2.

If the rules are unlawful, the agreement or decision to introduce them is prohibited, and prohibited decisions are void.

Agreements or decisions that have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition are prohibited [s.2(1)(b)].

Any agreement or decision which is prohibited by subsection (1) is void. [s.2(4)].

It's a pity that the panel's decision didn't spell this out, or (given that it's contested) that the panel hasn't been asked whether their ruling that the rules are unlawful means that the rules are void.

I don't think the panel have announced their recommendations, that's what make this vote bonkers !

 

[halfcenturyup]

I've not been following this of late. Re whether the APT rules are void, as the club says, have we not yet established why? It's in the Competition Act 1998, s.2.

If the rules are unlawful, the agreement or decision to introduce them is prohibited, and prohibited decisions are void.

Agreements or decisions that have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition are prohibited [s.2(1)(b)].

Any agreement or decision which is prohibited by subsection (1) is void. [s.2(4)].

It's a pity that the panel's decision didn't spell this out, or (given that it's contested) that the panel hasn't been asked whether their ruling that the rules are unlawful means that the rules are void.

As I understand it, the tribunal has been asked to clarify that, but haven't yet. Which makes me wonder what the PL is up to, other than extreme incompetence.

 

[Lord Blue]

standing back a little

it beggars belief that an organisation would behave the way the premier league does.

warring members battling for their own interests rather than working together for the greater good of the whole.

i know, i know, it's just the way businesses work.