It seems a little counter-productive for Mike Ashley to file an anti-competition law suit with arbitration still ongoing. Arbitration is about a pathway to acquisition. A damages case is a defeatist move from an owner fighting for compensation not a sale.
Key line in anti-competition suit reads, “[Ashley has] lost the immediate sale, or lost likely opportunity of an immediate sale of its shares... to the Consortium.”
This isn’t accurate if arbitration ongoing. & was #NUFC who added most significant delay by challenging Beloff.
This isn’t accurate if arbitration ongoing. & was #NUFC who added most significant delay by challenging Beloff.
Yes, arbitration & anti-competition cases can run concurrently... but if MA wins arbitration and PIF-led consortium assume control then he clearly isn’t going to win the other case so why start it?... unless perhaps there’s been a price drop or new time delay we don’t know about.
Similarly if arbitration is lost (or abandoned... now very possible) and the consortium don’t take control MA still pockets 17m. That is compensation in itself.
My reading of MA’s anti-competition lawsuit is it’s not just a ploy to further punish EPL, but a very personal battle to gain something from what increasingly looks like a failed takeover. The timing of the new damages case doesn’t bode well.
We won’t necessarily know if #NUFC arbitration is abandoned. Currently there is no suggestion of this. But there is no cause for MA to also now seek damages if he’s confident arbitration will forge a pathway to a sale and quickly.
And for balance, I do appreciate those who think the opposite... that this is a power play move using every legal tool possible to complete the takeover, attack the EPL and gain compensation. That’s another valid theory... just not my own reading of it.
Obviously one advantage of an anti-competition case of this nature is disclosure, & info would be forthcoming long before the case itself ends. But the key would still be whether anything (however damning) would fall under arbitration’s terms of reference and arrive quick enough.
A final thought: an anti-competition case could result in an injunction to reconsider the takeover... but again if the stated issue is separation, and #NUFC are confident of winning on this point, then they don’t need one. Thing to remember is arbitration is comparatively quick.
Unless anti-competition case is expedited, and legal sources I have spoken to don’t see this as likely, any kind of final outcome (other than disclosure) could take years. PIF have waited a year. I don’t see them waiting 1-2 more.
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