CONFIMRED - The final countdown

[JedMaxwell]

Key to remember that Couhig isn't some humble Southern gent, just trying to make his way and is being shat on by the big bad CCP in the form of Dai. They're two egotistical, hard-headed, greedy bastards looking to maximise the cash in their pockets and win this argument, even if for different reasons.

Platek may well be another, but I'd wager he has demonstrated success with multiple club ownerships and if he's still in the mix to buy the club, he must be serious. The next set of comms will be key to assessing this.

Ultimately, I'm tired of rich gits using something so dear to my heart (and many others') as a game piece. Couhig and Dai need to get in a room and get their knobs out so they can decide who the winner is, and let Platek - presumably, and hopefully on my part - get on with rebuilding the club.

[Snowflake Royal]

My guess is Dai isn't serious about the escrow or selling, Platek isn't actually that close to buying, Couhig is making a convenient scapegoat and we're oxf*rd left, right or backwards

[windermereROYAL]

Brilliant article

https://www.fotmob.com/topnews/20130?embedded=true

[Hound]

What’s actually in this for Dai, I don’t get it. He’s completely fcuked up the sale process to the point he’s now being sued and owning a club that’s worth less by the day

He’s now getting headlines in the news and becoming even more vilified. He’s now disqualified so that dream of getting promoted and selling the club for a lot more is virtually out the window if not certainly

It’s bizarre. Dunno what level Howe has been involved in but if he is actually in charge of the sale as well then he’s completely screwed up as well

[morganb]

Do we think Dai is actually able to sign any paperwork or is he in hiding/locked up/something worse? Assume he is the only one able to sign over the club or the escrow docs

[Armadillo Roadkill]

There's a few points to consider here really aren't there, on whether this is good, bad or mediocre.

1) Dai is in exclusive sale discussions with someone, presumed to be Platek, and the FL seem to have said they're in dialogue with them. We can take this as a Fact then.
2) What we don't know is how far along in negotiations they are and whether the buyer [Inference Platek] is in a position to buy us NOW or before the expiration of some further deadline extension. Or even whether he'd go through with a purchase at all.
3) Dai has been in exclusivity discussions with at least three parties, possibly four, I forget. None of those actually resulted in a sale, with Couhig getting closest.
4) So it's an Assumption that anything would actually complete even if Couhig had agreed to this.
5) We can Infer that there's still an 'easy' route through to a sale, all that has to happen is Platek puts £12m of what he proposes to pay for the club in Escrow, to be held until Couhig's case is decided and ge distributed afterwards based on the outcome of the case. If Platek is poised to buy the club as soon as Couhig's 'block' is removed, then it's trivial to solve if Platek wants to buy and Dai is being honest about the commitment.
6) Couhig is suing Dai for breaching exclusivity and reneging on his agreement to sell the club to Dai, for loss of income. Fact
7) it's unreasonable to expect Couhig to just accept Dai's promise, when he's suing him for dishonesty and broken agreements.
Couhig would buy us today if Dai signed.
9) Dai selling to Couhig would open the door to Platek taking the same legal action Couhig is. But that would be post survival of club and Platek presumably doesn't have the same leverage with the liens as Couhig. But that's an educated Assumption

So basically, we have more info, but we're still no further forward. And we don't know that Couhig is actually preventing anything happen, because we don't know there's an oven ready deal sitting there waiting to go through.

A very useful summary.

My only hope now is the EFL realise the enormity of what would happen if they take the nuclear option, and find some way to fudge things. And that's hard to imagine if Dai or his representatives won't engage.

It's looking like Maidenhead in National League South for me next. season.

[Greatwesternline]

You can keep saying this, but it doesn't make it any more true.

Which part isn't true?

The sum of £12 million is widely reported. It may vary a bit, but it's in that region.

Why is he claiming that sum in his court case? Because that's what he says he has lost out on by not buying the club. It's not the costs he incurred in his attempt to buy the club. He himself puts that at about $1 million.

Would he have made a lot of money if he'd been able to buy the club? Only by asset stripping.

His claim is way more complicated than that. While it does include lost time and money invested into the takeover, plus damages for breaching exclusivity, it's more than a bit basic to interpret “lost profits” as “taking a monthly income”. It’s his argument that the deal was terminated unjustly, and that if Dai had behaved lawfully, RC would be in possession of shares that would have risen in value. The evaluation includes financial projections that haven’t been publicly disclosed. My guess is that RC’s team had a strategy in place that factored in promotions, matchday and commercial revenue, player development and sales, broadcasting and solidarity payments, that would improve the club’s valuation over a long period. It doesn’t matter about Reading running at a loss – now or in the future. It matters what price the shares would increase. RC's whole shtick has been about turning around the fortunes and value of football clubs, leaving them stronger than when he arrived.

RC is seeking to prove that DY terminated the deal unlawfully. If he can do that, he can rightly claim damages equal to the amount he projects, or lower than depending on whether the judge finds the projection credible.

Note, he doesn’t have to prove without doubt he’d have lost £12m. Much like a court case in which someone sues for damages due to libel or deformation – you provide an estimate of what the deformation might have cost you, back that up with evidence as best you can, and the court decides if that’s fair. Johnny Depp recently took Amber Heard to court for $50m damages, and though he won, the court decided a valuation of $15m. This is how law works; you punch high, as there is absolutely no reason not to sue for the most money you think you could get. You can still win (because the court finds the grounds of your claim legitimate) but leave with less (because they didn’t find enough convincing evidence for the full amount).

So yeah, it’s such a dumb take to think this is about how much profit the club makes.

In UK law you cannot claim for speculative hypothetical future losses. You need to prove an actual loss, and you also need to show that you attempted to mitigate your own loss.

RC has not made £12m in losses. As reported on from the court hearing on here, Couhig's lawyers said during exclusivity Dai sent a prospectus out to some other interested buyers. That was a breach of exclusivity. There is a breach of contract there. And the loss in RC's eyes is he lost the opportunity to buy the club because clearly someone else is now trying to buy it.

So RC needs to prove his loss as a result of the breach of exclusivity. That loss cannot be future profits from RFC sale at some point in the future, that is too hypothetical. I can't sue a company if they didnt deliver on a good or service, and as a result i lose next year's hypothetical profits, if you could sue another company for future losses, no one would ever into contract with anyone else.

Dai would have been reasonably aware that Couhig hoped to make some money out of Reading and was denied that opportunity by the breach, so there is some reasonable loss, but that loss can't be "well if i got them promoted I'd make £20m", its too remote.

All the lawyers involved know this because it's module 1 of UK contract law. But....there is a reasonable claim around some loss, but its certainly not tens of millions.

Both of these statements can be true at the same time:

RC is holding up a sale.
DY is messing around and isn't that bothered about selling because the sales price is now so low if makes little difference to him.


RC refusing to give up his securities and killing a sale may lead to RFC being kicked out, in which case RC has security of some assets with no use to them. Logic dictates a deal will still be found. But not if £6m here or there is so small to Dai that he shrugs his shoulders of it all.

[Sutekh]

Which part isn't true?

The sum of £12 million is widely reported. It may vary a bit, but it's in that region.

Why is he claiming that sum in his court case? Because that's what he says he has lost out on by not buying the club. It's not the costs he incurred in his attempt to buy the club. He himself puts that at about $1 million.

Would he have made a lot of money if he'd been able to buy the club? Only by asset stripping.

His claim is way more complicated than that. While it does include lost time and money invested into the takeover, plus damages for breaching exclusivity, it's more than a bit basic to interpret “lost profits” as “taking a monthly income”. It’s his argument that the deal was terminated unjustly, and that if Dai had behaved lawfully, RC would be in possession of shares that would have risen in value. The evaluation includes financial projections that haven’t been publicly disclosed. My guess is that RC’s team had a strategy in place that factored in promotions, matchday and commercial revenue, player development and sales, broadcasting and solidarity payments, that would improve the club’s valuation over a long period. It doesn’t matter about Reading running at a loss – now or in the future. It matters what price the shares would increase. RC's whole shtick has been about turning around the fortunes and value of football clubs, leaving them stronger than when he arrived.

RC is seeking to prove that DY terminated the deal unlawfully. If he can do that, he can rightly claim damages equal to the amount he projects, or lower than depending on whether the judge finds the projection credible.

Note, he doesn’t have to prove without doubt he’d have lost £12m. Much like a court case in which someone sues for damages due to libel or deformation – you provide an estimate of what the deformation might have cost you, back that up with evidence as best you can, and the court decides if that’s fair. Johnny Depp recently took Amber Heard to court for $50m damages, and though he won, the court decided a valuation of $15m. This is how law works; you punch high, as there is absolutely no reason not to sue for the most money you think you could get. You can still win (because the court finds the grounds of your claim legitimate) but leave with less (because they didn’t find enough convincing evidence for the full amount).

So yeah, it’s such a dumb take to think this is about how much profit the club makes.

In UK law you cannot claim for speculative hypothetical future losses. You need to prove an actual loss, and you also need to show that you attempted to mitigate your own loss.

RC has not made £12m in losses. As reported on from the court hearing on here, Couhig's lawyers said during exclusivity Dai sent a prospectus out to some other interested buyers. That was a breach of exclusivity. There is a breach of contract there. And the loss in RC's eyes is he lost the opportunity to buy the club because clearly someone else is now trying to buy it.

So RC needs to prove his loss as a result of the breach of exclusivity. That loss cannot be future profits from RFC sale at some point in the future, that is too hypothetical. I can't sue a company if they didnt deliver on a good or service, and as a result i lose next year's hypothetical profits, if you could sue another company for future losses, no one would ever into contract with anyone else.

Dai would have been reasonably aware that Couhig hoped to make some money out of Reading and was denied that opportunity by the breach, so there is some reasonable loss, but that loss can't be "well if i got them promoted I'd make £20m", its too remote.

All the lawyers involved know this because it's module 1 of UK contract law. But....there is a reasonable claim around some loss, but its certainly not tens of millions.

Both of these statements can be true at the same time:

RC is holding up a sale.
DY is messing around and isn't that bothered about selling because the sales price is now so low if makes little difference to him.


RC refusing to give up his securities and killing a sale may lead to RFC being kicked out, in which case RC has security of some assets with no use to them. Logic dictates a deal will still be found. But not if £6m here or there is so small to Dai that he shrugs his shoulders of it all.

The club argued, I think, that they did not breach exclusivity and that the perceived breach was a third party circulating documents. But, if so, wouldn’t you sue that third party?

[Lower West]

Do we think Dai is actually able to sign any paperwork or is he in hiding/locked up/something worse? Assume he is the only one able to sign over the club or the escrow docs

Dai isn't puliing the strings. Having been found guity of fraud. Locked up in some form or another.

Realising the best value of the club, ground and training facility are as much about recovering money for the creditors. There's serious amounts of money involved. Be no giveaways.

[Greatwesternline]

His claim is way more complicated than that. While it does include lost time and money invested into the takeover, plus damages for breaching exclusivity, it's more than a bit basic to interpret “lost profits” as “taking a monthly income”. It’s his argument that the deal was terminated unjustly, and that if Dai had behaved lawfully, RC would be in possession of shares that would have risen in value. The evaluation includes financial projections that haven’t been publicly disclosed. My guess is that RC’s team had a strategy in place that factored in promotions, matchday and commercial revenue, player development and sales, broadcasting and solidarity payments, that would improve the club’s valuation over a long period. It doesn’t matter about Reading running at a loss – now or in the future. It matters what price the shares would increase. RC's whole shtick has been about turning around the fortunes and value of football clubs, leaving them stronger than when he arrived.

RC is seeking to prove that DY terminated the deal unlawfully. If he can do that, he can rightly claim damages equal to the amount he projects, or lower than depending on whether the judge finds the projection credible.

Note, he doesn’t have to prove without doubt he’d have lost £12m. Much like a court case in which someone sues for damages due to libel or deformation – you provide an estimate of what the deformation might have cost you, back that up with evidence as best you can, and the court decides if that’s fair. Johnny Depp recently took Amber Heard to court for $50m damages, and though he won, the court decided a valuation of $15m. This is how law works; you punch high, as there is absolutely no reason not to sue for the most money you think you could get. You can still win (because the court finds the grounds of your claim legitimate) but leave with less (because they didn’t find enough convincing evidence for the full amount).

So yeah, it’s such a dumb take to think this is about how much profit the club makes.

In UK law you cannot claim for speculative hypothetical future losses. You need to prove an actual loss, and you also need to show that you attempted to mitigate your own loss.

RC has not made £12m in losses. As reported on from the court hearing on here, Couhig's lawyers said during exclusivity Dai sent a prospectus out to some other interested buyers. That was a breach of exclusivity. There is a breach of contract there. And the loss in RC's eyes is he lost the opportunity to buy the club because clearly someone else is now trying to buy it.

So RC needs to prove his loss as a result of the breach of exclusivity. That loss cannot be future profits from RFC sale at some point in the future, that is too hypothetical. I can't sue a company if they didnt deliver on a good or service, and as a result i lose next year's hypothetical profits, if you could sue another company for future losses, no one would ever into contract with anyone else.

Dai would have been reasonably aware that Couhig hoped to make some money out of Reading and was denied that opportunity by the breach, so there is some reasonable loss, but that loss can't be "well if i got them promoted I'd make £20m", its too remote.

All the lawyers involved know this because it's module 1 of UK contract law. But....there is a reasonable claim around some loss, but its certainly not tens of millions.

Both of these statements can be true at the same time:

RC is holding up a sale.
DY is messing around and isn't that bothered about selling because the sales price is now so low if makes little difference to him.


RC refusing to give up his securities and killing a sale may lead to RFC being kicked out, in which case RC has security of some assets with no use to them. Logic dictates a deal will still be found. But not if £6m here or there is so small to Dai that he shrugs his shoulders of it all.

The club argued, I think, that they did not breach exclusivity and that the perceived breach was a third party circulating documents. But, if so, wouldn’t you sue that third party?

If that third party is working on behalf of RFC then Couhig sues RFC and RFC sues 3rd party.

You can't delegate away your own contractual obligation.

[Extended-Phenotype]

Which part isn't true?

The sum of £12 million is widely reported. It may vary a bit, but it's in that region.

Why is he claiming that sum in his court case? Because that's what he says he has lost out on by not buying the club. It's not the costs he incurred in his attempt to buy the club. He himself puts that at about $1 million.

Would he have made a lot of money if he'd been able to buy the club? Only by asset stripping.

His claim is way more complicated than that. While it does include lost time and money invested into the takeover, plus damages for breaching exclusivity, it's more than a bit basic to interpret “lost profits” as “taking a monthly income”. It’s his argument that the deal was terminated unjustly, and that if Dai had behaved lawfully, RC would be in possession of shares that would have risen in value. The evaluation includes financial projections that haven’t been publicly disclosed. My guess is that RC’s team had a strategy in place that factored in promotions, matchday and commercial revenue, player development and sales, broadcasting and solidarity payments, that would improve the club’s valuation over a long period. It doesn’t matter about Reading running at a loss – now or in the future. It matters what price the shares would increase. RC's whole shtick has been about turning around the fortunes and value of football clubs, leaving them stronger than when he arrived.

RC is seeking to prove that DY terminated the deal unlawfully. If he can do that, he can rightly claim damages equal to the amount he projects, or lower than depending on whether the judge finds the projection credible.

Note, he doesn’t have to prove without doubt he’d have lost £12m. Much like a court case in which someone sues for damages due to libel or deformation – you provide an estimate of what the deformation might have cost you, back that up with evidence as best you can, and the court decides if that’s fair. Johnny Depp recently took Amber Heard to court for $50m damages, and though he won, the court decided a valuation of $15m. This is how law works; you punch high, as there is absolutely no reason not to sue for the most money you think you could get. You can still win (because the court finds the grounds of your claim legitimate) but leave with less (because they didn’t find enough convincing evidence for the full amount).

So yeah, it’s such a dumb take to think this is about how much profit the club makes.

In UK law you cannot claim for speculative hypothetical future losses. You need to prove an actual loss, and you also need to show that you attempted to mitigate your own loss.

RC has not made £12m in losses. As reported on from the court hearing on here, Couhig's lawyers said during exclusivity Dai sent a prospectus out to some other interested buyers. That was a breach of exclusivity. There is a breach of contract there. And the loss in RC's eyes is he lost the opportunity to buy the club because clearly someone else is now trying to buy it.

So RC needs to prove his loss as a result of the breach of exclusivity. That loss cannot be future profits from RFC sale at some point in the future, that is too hypothetical. I can't sue a company if they didnt deliver on a good or service, and as a result i lose next year's hypothetical profits, if you could sue another company for future losses, no one would ever into contract with anyone else.

Dai would have been reasonably aware that Couhig hoped to make some money out of Reading and was denied that opportunity by the breach, so there is some reasonable loss, but that loss can't be "well if i got them promoted I'd make £20m", its too remote.

All the lawyers involved know this because it's module 1 of UK contract law. But....there is a reasonable claim around some loss, but its certainly not tens of millions.

Both of these statements can be true at the same time:

RC is holding up a sale.
DY is messing around and isn't that bothered about selling because the sales price is now so low if makes little difference to him.


RC refusing to give up his securities and killing a sale may lead to RFC being kicked out, in which case RC has security of some assets with no use to them. Logic dictates a deal will still be found. But not if £6m here or there is so small to Dai that he shrugs his shoulders of it all.

Interesting stuff, GWL. First, I suspect projected loss is grey and there will be ways around this “can’t”, if can’t is the case. Second, RC does appear to be able to claim it, as the court case exists (if his case was weak or had no legal basis, it would have been thrown out). Third, we know the liens is a sticking point but only if the potential damages are not secured elsewhere, so it’s bending the truth to say it’s the liens holding up the sale when the reality is it’s the club’s failure to deal with it in a reasonable manner. And finally, there is some legs to the idea that the liens prevents Dai from waiting for club to be folded and having complete authority to sell its parts.

We’ve all said from the start that £12m or whatever the figure is seems ridiculously high. But that’s very typical with claimed damages. I don’t think you can get away with suing someone for a trillion billion pounds if they gave you a bad haircut, so there must be some credibility to the figure. But of course the court could find in Couhig’s favour and award him a tenth of that. But if he sued for a tenth, the court would never award him more. In the end, the figure doesn’t really matter beyond being enough to force Dai’s hand. And remember, any legal agreement to escrow it is not the same as awarding it. If Dai didn’t think Couhig could win, or was highly unlikely to walk with that sum, what difference does it make sticking it aside?

The only reason I can think of for Dai’s legal team dicking about for a week just to send RC a bloody non-binding postcard is that there is no genuine sale in the locker. My money remains on Dai just not being anywhere near this mess and people just stalling without a fcking clue what to do. Because not selling and not putting the money in escrow makes no bloody sense.

Honestly, I’d love to be a fly on the wall. There’s something significant we don’t know, and maybe never will.

[blueroyals]

The only reason I can think of for Dai’s legal team dicking about for a week just to send RC a bloody non-binding postcard is that there is no genuine sale in the locker

Yep and the timing of the initial exclusivity announcement is.... interesting

The EFL notified Dai he was being disqualified on the 11th Feb. 2 weeks later the exclusivity was announced, and shortly after that the EFL agreed to extend the deadline for a sale to the 5th April. So one might suggest that the exclusivity announcement was conveniently timed, given the conversations that would have been on-going in the background with the EFL at that time

[Greatwesternline]

His claim is way more complicated than that. While it does include lost time and money invested into the takeover, plus damages for breaching exclusivity, it's more than a bit basic to interpret “lost profits” as “taking a monthly income”. It’s his argument that the deal was terminated unjustly, and that if Dai had behaved lawfully, RC would be in possession of shares that would have risen in value. The evaluation includes financial projections that haven’t been publicly disclosed. My guess is that RC’s team had a strategy in place that factored in promotions, matchday and commercial revenue, player development and sales, broadcasting and solidarity payments, that would improve the club’s valuation over a long period. It doesn’t matter about Reading running at a loss – now or in the future. It matters what price the shares would increase. RC's whole shtick has been about turning around the fortunes and value of football clubs, leaving them stronger than when he arrived.

RC is seeking to prove that DY terminated the deal unlawfully. If he can do that, he can rightly claim damages equal to the amount he projects, or lower than depending on whether the judge finds the projection credible.

Note, he doesn’t have to prove without doubt he’d have lost £12m. Much like a court case in which someone sues for damages due to libel or deformation – you provide an estimate of what the deformation might have cost you, back that up with evidence as best you can, and the court decides if that’s fair. Johnny Depp recently took Amber Heard to court for $50m damages, and though he won, the court decided a valuation of $15m. This is how law works; you punch high, as there is absolutely no reason not to sue for the most money you think you could get. You can still win (because the court finds the grounds of your claim legitimate) but leave with less (because they didn’t find enough convincing evidence for the full amount).

So yeah, it’s such a dumb take to think this is about how much profit the club makes.

In UK law you cannot claim for speculative hypothetical future losses. You need to prove an actual loss, and you also need to show that you attempted to mitigate your own loss.

RC has not made £12m in losses. As reported on from the court hearing on here, Couhig's lawyers said during exclusivity Dai sent a prospectus out to some other interested buyers. That was a breach of exclusivity. There is a breach of contract there. And the loss in RC's eyes is he lost the opportunity to buy the club because clearly someone else is now trying to buy it.

So RC needs to prove his loss as a result of the breach of exclusivity. That loss cannot be future profits from RFC sale at some point in the future, that is too hypothetical. I can't sue a company if they didnt deliver on a good or service, and as a result i lose next year's hypothetical profits, if you could sue another company for future losses, no one would ever into contract with anyone else.

Dai would have been reasonably aware that Couhig hoped to make some money out of Reading and was denied that opportunity by the breach, so there is some reasonable loss, but that loss can't be "well if i got them promoted I'd make £20m", its too remote.

All the lawyers involved know this because it's module 1 of UK contract law. But....there is a reasonable claim around some loss, but its certainly not tens of millions.

Both of these statements can be true at the same time:

RC is holding up a sale.
DY is messing around and isn't that bothered about selling because the sales price is now so low if makes little difference to him.


RC refusing to give up his securities and killing a sale may lead to RFC being kicked out, in which case RC has security of some assets with no use to them. Logic dictates a deal will still be found. But not if £6m here or there is so small to Dai that he shrugs his shoulders of it all.

Interesting stuff, GWL. First, I suspect projected loss is grey and there will be ways around this “can’t”, if can’t is the case. Second, RC does appear to be able to claim it, as the court case exists (if his case was weak or had no legal basis, it would have been thrown out). Third, we know the liens is a sticking point but only if the potential damages are not secured elsewhere, so it’s bending the truth to say it’s the liens holding up the sale when the reality is it’s the club’s failure to deal with it in a reasonable manner. And finally, there is some legs to the idea that the liens prevents Dai from waiting for club to be folded and having complete authority to sell its parts.

We’ve all said from the start that £12m or whatever the figure is seems ridiculously high. But that’s very typical with claimed damages. I don’t think you can get away with suing someone for a trillion billion pounds if they gave you a bad haircut, so there must be some credibility to the figure. But of course the court could find in Couhig’s favour and award him a tenth of that. But if he sued for a tenth, the court would never award him more. In the end, the figure doesn’t really matter beyond being enough to force Dai’s hand. And remember, any legal agreement to escrow it is not the same as awarding it. If Dai didn’t think Couhig could win, or was highly unlikely to walk with that sum, what difference does it make sticking it aside?

The only reason I can think of for Dai’s legal team dicking about for a week just to send RC a bloody non-binding postcard is that there is no genuine sale in the locker. My money remains on Dai just not being anywhere near this mess and people just stalling without a fcking clue what to do. Because not selling and not putting the money in escrow makes no bloody sense.

Honestly, I’d love to be a fly on the wall. There’s something significant we don’t know, and maybe never will.

I don't think people can rely on the case not being struck out as evidence it has much merit.

Judge won't strike out speculative claims. They will still get heard.

As my lawyer wife says, a lot of cases go to court purely because judges are unpredictable and may take a liking to you and find in your favour inexplicably, so why not try it.

Which is why solicitors very very often advise clients to settle even when in the right, because you can't trust a judge to follow the law, and appealing is expensive.

[rabidbee]

The club argued, I think, that they did not breach exclusivity and that the perceived breach was a third party circulating documents. But, if so, wouldn’t you sue that third party?

If that third party is working on behalf of RFC then Couhig sues RFC and RFC sues 3rd party.

You can't delegate away your own contractual obligation.

Yeah, it's like clubs getting one of their players to talk to someone the club would like to sign whilst the players are away at the England camp. Honestly, no tapping up going on here...

[Snowflake Royal]

Which part isn't true?

The sum of £12 million is widely reported. It may vary a bit, but it's in that region.

Why is he claiming that sum in his court case? Because that's what he says he has lost out on by not buying the club. It's not the costs he incurred in his attempt to buy the club. He himself puts that at about $1 million.

Would he have made a lot of money if he'd been able to buy the club? Only by asset stripping.

His claim is way more complicated than that. While it does include lost time and money invested into the takeover, plus damages for breaching exclusivity, it's more than a bit basic to interpret “lost profits” as “taking a monthly income”. It’s his argument that the deal was terminated unjustly, and that if Dai had behaved lawfully, RC would be in possession of shares that would have risen in value. The evaluation includes financial projections that haven’t been publicly disclosed. My guess is that RC’s team had a strategy in place that factored in promotions, matchday and commercial revenue, player development and sales, broadcasting and solidarity payments, that would improve the club’s valuation over a long period. It doesn’t matter about Reading running at a loss – now or in the future. It matters what price the shares would increase. RC's whole shtick has been about turning around the fortunes and value of football clubs, leaving them stronger than when he arrived.

RC is seeking to prove that DY terminated the deal unlawfully. If he can do that, he can rightly claim damages equal to the amount he projects, or lower than depending on whether the judge finds the projection credible.

Note, he doesn’t have to prove without doubt he’d have lost £12m. Much like a court case in which someone sues for damages due to libel or deformation – you provide an estimate of what the deformation might have cost you, back that up with evidence as best you can, and the court decides if that’s fair. Johnny Depp recently took Amber Heard to court for $50m damages, and though he won, the court decided a valuation of $15m. This is how law works; you punch high, as there is absolutely no reason not to sue for the most money you think you could get. You can still win (because the court finds the grounds of your claim legitimate) but leave with less (because they didn’t find enough convincing evidence for the full amount).

So yeah, it’s such a dumb take to think this is about how much profit the club makes.

In UK law you cannot claim for speculative hypothetical future losses. You need to prove an actual loss, and you also need to show that you attempted to mitigate your own loss.

RC has not made £12m in losses. As reported on from the court hearing on here, Couhig's lawyers said during exclusivity Dai sent a prospectus out to some other interested buyers. That was a breach of exclusivity. There is a breach of contract there. And the loss in RC's eyes is he lost the opportunity to buy the club because clearly someone else is now trying to buy it.

So RC needs to prove his loss as a result of the breach of exclusivity. That loss cannot be future profits from RFC sale at some point in the future, that is too hypothetical. I can't sue a company if they didnt deliver on a good or service, and as a result i lose next year's hypothetical profits, if you could sue another company for future losses, no one would ever into contract with anyone else.

Dai would have been reasonably aware that Couhig hoped to make some money out of Reading and was denied that opportunity by the breach, so there is some reasonable loss, but that loss can't be "well if i got them promoted I'd make £20m", its too remote.

All the lawyers involved know this because it's module 1 of UK contract law. But....there is a reasonable claim around some loss, but its certainly not tens of millions.

Both of these statements can be true at the same time:

RC is holding up a sale.
DY is messing around and isn't that bothered about selling because the sales price is now so low if makes little difference to him.


RC refusing to give up his securities and killing a sale may lead to RFC being kicked out, in which case RC has security of some assets with no use to them. Logic dictates a deal will still be found. But not if £6m here or there is so small to Dai that he shrugs his shoulders of it all.

I don't know anything about this sort of thing, other than I'm currently involved in a legal case that involves a suit for loss of hypothetical future earnings.

We're applying for it to be struck out and the legal view is that has a high chance of success, but we're still being sued for hypothetical bullshit. So you certainly can do it. Just your prospect of success is likely limited. And the application to strike out is predominantly because we didn't do anything wrong, rather than the claim is hypothetical future earnings

[WestYorksRoyal]

Was it last year that Pang allegedly said British people are too emotional about business decisions? Quite ironic, as from the outside it looks like selling to Couhig is the most rational action, and emototions and grudges are the blocker.

[Silver Fox]

In very simplistic terms, I’d say he has a fair shout to say if he’d taken over the club, it would have had an excellent chance of being a champ club next season and hence worth double the price he signed up for

Difficult to argue that one imo

Especially if his brief successfully quoted the legal precedent from My Auntie vs Bollocks

[WestYorksRoyal]

In very simplistic terms, I’d say he has a fair shout to say if he’d taken over the club, it would have had an excellent chance of being a champ club next season and hence worth double the price he signed up for

Difficult to argue that one imo

Especially if his brief successfully quoted the legal precedent from My Auntie vs Bollocks

He has a track record to point to from Wycombe where he made a profit.

And as Hound has said, if you look at our performance on the pitch this season, there's little doubt we'd be top 4 or so with a few shrewd additions, Smith retained and off pitch stability.

[Extended-Phenotype]

Judge won't strike out speculative claims. They will still get heard.

Eh, not quite true. The legal system has processes to filter out frivolous, vexatious or baseless lawsuits. You can’t just file any claim and have your day in court. If there are no reasonable grounds for the claim the defendant can issue a strike-out application. The only thing that stops everyone from doing that, is that failure incurs costs. One imagines as a defendant in a completely frivolous lawsuit, you’d always issue a strike-out.

Anyway, another thought; if there isn’t another genuine deal underway (as in, this Platek guy isn’t really interested or Dai has no real intention to sell) then regardless of its veracity, isn’t Couhig’s liens a positive thing?

[Forbury Lion]

1) Dai is in exclusive sale discussions with someone, presumed to be Platek, and the FL seem to have said they're in dialogue with them. We can take this as a Fact then.

I doubt Dai himself is in discussions, but tweak that to "Representatives of the club" and I reckon that will be a Fact.

2) What we don't know is how far along in negotiations they are and whether the buyer [Inference Platek] is in a position to buy us NOW or before the expiration of some further deadline extension. Or even whether he'd go through with a purchase at all.

Definitely a Fact that we don't know.

3) Dai has been in exclusivity discussions with at least three parties, possibly four, I forget. None of those actually resulted in a sale, with Couhig getting closest.

To be honest, I've lost count. We assume Couhig got closest only because he jumped the gun and went public, but I imagine he was really close. You can understand why the new bidder, who we all believe is Platek is keeping quiet, But given the timescales, I would hope they are ready to sign and transfer the money.

4) So it's an Assumption that anything would actually complete even if Couhig had agreed to this.

Agree

5) We can Infer that there's still an 'easy' route through to a sale, all that has to happen is Platek puts £12m of what he proposes to pay for the club in Escrow, to be held until Couhig's case is decided and ge distributed afterwards based on the outcome of the case. If Platek is poised to buy the club as soon as Couhig's 'block' is removed, then it's trivial to solve if Platek wants to buy and Dai is being honest about the commitment.

The big variable we can't predict, Dai Yongge. His motives and reasoning can not be predicted, He's had plenty of easy routes to sell the club, we can't assume anything.

6) Couhig is suing Dai for breaching exclusivity and reneging on his agreement to sell the club to Dai, for loss of income. Fact

Sounds about right, although you can generally only sue for losses not missed opportunities, I would assume the counter argument would be that club is losing money each month so arguably by the time the case is heard Couhig would have avoided losing more money already than he's claiming.
Also small typo "sell the club to Dai"

7) it's unreasonable to expect Couhig to just accept Dai's promise, when he's suing him for dishonesty and broken agreements.

Agreed

8) Couhig would buy us today if Dai signed.

Speculation - Not sure myself, Is his aim now to screw over Dai rather than to buy the football club? - Have his backers taken their money elsewhere? Does he have another target in mind? Are we a better or worse investment than before?

9) Dai selling to Couhig would open the door to Platek taking the same legal action Couhig is. But that would be post survival of club and Platek presumably doesn't have the same leverage with the liens as Couhig. But that's an educated Assumption

Just how messy would that be?