Full details of the long running dispute between Sports Direct International and the Club from Ibrox has been published as Mike Ashley’s firm closes in on compensation for breach of contract.
In June 2017 Dave King announced that the seven year contract had been ended and urged the Gullible to snap up the end of season stock. In November the club accounts revealed that they had paid £3m to end the deal and entered into a new contract with SDI.
In April 2018 a world record kit and merchandise deal was announced with Hummel, when SDI weren’t offered matching rights the litigation started with the iconic kit only released online towards the end of September.
With SDI on top of every detail Hummel cancelled their three year contract with 12 months still to run while SDI were granted legal costs as they took, initially Dave King, to court to recover many millions in lost revenue.
Details were published today with the background to the latest hearing with items 12-14 explaining:
The Agreement contained detailed provisions giving effect to the Matching Right, including a requirement that Rangers provide SDIR with written notice of the “Material Terms” (relating to payments, royalties and duration) of the Third Party Offer within 5 days of receipt (paragraph 5.2 of Schedule 3), SDIR then having 10 days to decide whether to match the offer in respect of some or all of the rights in question (and any “connected commercial arrangements”), either from receipt of the notice or the receipt of further information or clarification if requested by SDIR (paragraphs 5.4 and 5.6). If SDIR agreed to match the offer, Rangers and SDIR were to enter a further agreement on the same terms as the Agreement, suitably altered so as to reflect the Offered Rights matched (and any connected commercial arrangements) and the Material Terms offered by the third party (paragraph 5.7).
By the Elite/Hummel Agreement, executed on 30 March 2018, Rangers appointed Elite as the exclusive worldwide supplier of Technical Products and Hummel as the exclusive worldwide Technical Brand. In particular, Elite and Hummel were granted the rights to manufacture and supply official and replica kits for the 2018/2019, 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 Scottish football seasons (and for European competitions in those seasons).
Rangers had not given notice to SDIR of the offer from Elite and did not inform SDIR that the Elite/Hummel Agreement had been signed. On 20 April 2018 Rangers issued a press release announcing a new kit and manufacturing agreement with Hummel, but made no mention of Elite. When SDIR’s solicitors pressed for a copy of the agreement with Hummel and asked for confirmation that Hummel had not been granted rights to market or sell official or replica kit, Rangers falsely gave such confirmation, stating that the rights granted to Hummel simply replaced those previously granted to Puma.
There has been no media coverage of today’s hearing, had there been good news for the Ibrox club it would probably have surfaced.
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