Introduction

In the English High Court case of Revenue and Customs Commissioners v Football League Ltd (Football Association Premier League Ltd intervening) [2012] EWHC 1372 (Ch);  [2012] WLR (D) 163, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) brought a general challenge to the "football creditors rule".

The current position is that 8 players have been reported as having objected to their contracts of employment transferring to the "new Rangers". Charles Green has apparently threatened to litigate any departing players given that, in his view, they are in breach of contract.

At this time of year, sports pages are normally rife with transfer speculation before the new domestic seasons begin across the UK. This summer is different however, due to increased interest in Glasgow Rangers and the effect of “TUPE transfers” of players to the Rangers Newco.

Of all the headlines related to Rangers’ current financial plight one related to the world of sales finance is probably a surprise. However, Rangers’ administrators recently sought the opinion of the Court of Session on the club’s well publicised deal with Ticketus, under which Rangers sold to Ticketus rights to future season ticket sales.  Although the Ticketus deal is not, strictly, an invoice financing Lord Hodge’s opinion touches on several questions directly relevant to sales finance.
 

This blog is supposed to be about real estate, mostly commercial real estate.  So when one of my Celtic-supporting partners who has been watching avidly every twist and turn of the Rangers saga said I should read the latest court judgement and what it said about property law, I was a little surprised.  But there is quite a lot that is relevant to what we do on a day to day basis.

On 29 November 2011, the Court of Appeal ruled for the dismissal of appeals lodged by Digital Satellite Warranty Cover Limited (DSWC) and Bernard Freeman and Michael Sullivan, trading as Satellite Services (SS), in respect of winding-up orders previously secured by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) against these companies.

In September 2009 we reported on the first instance decision in Butters and ors v BBC Worldwide Ltd and ors, accessible here in which the Court held that contractual provisions in a joint venture agreement taken together with termination provisions in a licence of IP rights were void since the effect of those provisions on insolvency was to deprive creditors' access to assets and therefore contrary

One of the more interesting recent appointments in which MacRoberts have been acting relates to the administration of Livingston Football Club Limited ("Livingston") where we acted for Donnie McGruther of Mazars. Donnie was interim manager and subsequently administrator of Livingston.

Background