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Legal action...has this been noticed?

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  • I think @DevC’s summary is very clear and helpful to those of us without such legal knowledge.

  • FFS all we have done is file a claim in the Administration.

    This is standard practice in insolvency/bankruptcy/administration under English Insolvency laws, it is normally done by ones accountant as you need to provide evidence to support your claim. In this instance I suspect given the nature of the claim there will be a covering letter from a lawyer explaining the reasons for the claim and our justification. All claims are then considered by the Administrator and either accepted or rejected as ranking against the proceeds of the administration, after which a settlement date and percentage distribution will be proposed to the accepted creditors. The only difference with football clubs is
    a) under recent tax legislation HMRC are now deemed to be a preferential creditor and are expected to be paid in full &
    b) "football creditors" MUST get a minimum pay-out of 25%.

    It is the administrators duty to sell the club for as much as they can get in order to reach the minimum pay out required under law/rule. In this case given the estimated debt is in excess of £50m; of which half is owed to HMRC and at least a further £10m is "football" debt (excluding our claim for £6m), it means the sale price has to be at least £30m and that is before the proposed repurchase of Pride Park from Morris.

    The administrator has requested expressions of interest and evidence of funds alongside their request for creditors to lodge claims, but the sale will take time due to Morris's habit of dividing assets up between different legal entities, some of which are not in administration...

  • Thank you @Erroll_Sims. Brilliant summary. My guess is that we have filed a claim in the hope of getting a pay out because it will be easier for the administrator Quantuma to settle than go to court, especially if a buyer wants to move quickly.

  • I admit I am not @Dev but surely the point is we did not supply a service for which we were not paid...we just suffered (arguably) from their business shenannigans...so I do not see how we qualify as a creditor.

  • Yeah I can't see how we're a creditor either, but there are clearly people that understand the situation far better than I do

  • We aren't a creditor, we're a potential creditor with an unproven claim. It matters because the administrator needs to give potential buyers a view of where the club stands financially, otherwise the buyers can take action against the administrators.

    The closest equivalent would be when you buy a house you have your legal people check surveys, lease terms, planning applications in the area and for things like knotwood and flooding so you can have an idea what costs might be coming.

    Best case scenario is that the administrators accept legal action has a chance of winning and want to negotiate a settlement but in a wider sense I think we kind of have to put in a claim at this point or forever be told that any harm done was by the previous owners and that way the club can't be held accountable.

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