Collyer Bristow is facing a massive £25 million claim from the administrators of Rangers Football Club following the disastrous purchase of the club by embattled tycoon Craig Whyte.
Lifelong Rangers fan Whyte bought a controlling interest in the football club last May via his venture capital fund Liberty Capital, with legal advice from Collyer Bristow. Whyte paid just £1 for the club, but promised to invest £25 million in new players. However, that was just before a multi-million pound tax liability appeared, effectively forcing Rangers into administration in February 2012 (costing the club 10 points in the Scottish Premier League and handing the title to Scotland's other team, Celtic).
In the end Whyte, who was alleged to have leveraged future season ticket sales to pay off bank debt rather than dipping into his own pocket, was removed as chairman. At the beginning of March, the Scottish FA judged him not to be a "fit and proper person" to own any football club, and now Rangers is up for sale again. So it's not gone too well really.
Collyer Bristow acted for Whyte on the £1 purchase, and is now being chased by the club's administrators amid accusations of professional negligence and breach of fiduciary duty. While the basis of the claims is currently unclear, the administrators are claiming a punchy £25 million (about twice the firm's annual turnover). And as an opening shot, have have seized £3.6 million of cash from Collyer's client account.
A spokesman for Collyers said that the firm considered the claims "high speculative" and would be contesting "all claims brought by the administrators in the strongest possible terms".
Tip Off ROF
Lifelong Rangers fan Whyte bought a controlling interest in the football club last May via his venture capital fund Liberty Capital, with legal advice from Collyer Bristow. Whyte paid just £1 for the club, but promised to invest £25 million in new players. However, that was just before a multi-million pound tax liability appeared, effectively forcing Rangers into administration in February 2012 (costing the club 10 points in the Scottish Premier League and handing the title to Scotland's other team, Celtic).
In the end Whyte, who was alleged to have leveraged future season ticket sales to pay off bank debt rather than dipping into his own pocket, was removed as chairman. At the beginning of March, the Scottish FA judged him not to be a "fit and proper person" to own any football club, and now Rangers is up for sale again. So it's not gone too well really.
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Scottish football fans spot Collyer Bristow |
Collyer Bristow acted for Whyte on the £1 purchase, and is now being chased by the club's administrators amid accusations of professional negligence and breach of fiduciary duty. While the basis of the claims is currently unclear, the administrators are claiming a punchy £25 million (about twice the firm's annual turnover). And as an opening shot, have have seized £3.6 million of cash from Collyer's client account.
A spokesman for Collyers said that the firm considered the claims "high speculative" and would be contesting "all claims brought by the administrators in the strongest possible terms".
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It's bad enough that we're terrible at both sports without you getting the two fan-bases confused.
There are some nice photos of Scottish football fans removing the turf from Wembley - perhaps you could use one of those next time?
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I picked this picture because I got told off last time I wrote something about Scotland for using my favourite picture of Rab C Nesbitt. Supposedly our Scotch readers don't like that.
I promise next time I'll put in a pic from a home international, probably the one where the crossbar is smashed.
And another thing, egg-chasers can bore off.
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"However, that was just before a multi-million pound tax liability appeared"
The liability was known but no quantified well before the takeover.
"In the end Whyte, who was alleged to have leveraged future season ticket sales to pay off bank debt rather than dipping into his own pocket"
He has admitted this so its not alleged.
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Try getting the name of the club right before squabbling about the legal technicalities. Having said that, calling football a 'working class game' is even more painful!
WATP