Apparently tomorrow could be important regarding our legal case according to league express headline.

The report says there is a mediation meeting on Monday. Perhaps the most interesting news is that there are 4 respondents and the old company ( Marc Green) is NOT one of them. It's the RFL, the new company, the administrators and the insolvency service. They report that the most costly of the claims relate to TUPE and failure to consult.
If not resolved by mediation it will be an Employment Tribunal set for 7 days in January.

I'd expect some sort of settlement out of court.

Hopefully they will reach an agreement before xmas.
It would be nice to start next year with a clean sheet rather than the sword of damacles

He is one of the claimants, I believe?

Still haven't worked out how the newco are involved, though. It makes little sense to me.

I think the basic argument is that the newco is just the old co, i.e. the old co was not liquidated but sold on to ChaLo. I believe the argument is that the RFL had control over who the new owners were and not the Administrator and that fines belonging to the old co (12 point deduction etc) were imposed onto newco.

That's my understanding too. Didn't the administrator complain that the admin process was circumvented by the RFL? The article in League Express reckons that if it gets to tribunal the whole saga will be laid bare. That could be embarrassing enough to force a settlement. Who settles is anyone's guess but to me it looks like the RFL engineered the whole process.

I'd expect any players that have signed new deals will have dropped out of claiming.

You're right, it is a strange one.

We know from Social-Media Man & co that Thorne was allowed into the stadium by Pet-tit AFTER he'd announced liquidation. Didn't their reports say Thorne offered to tupe the entire squad that remained to the new-co he's registered at Companies house? Surely that Petit's problem...There were only two registered entities at CH at that time, Green's & Thorne's, IIRC Orca's Bulls was registered a week or two later.

As the RFL kyboshed it and the players lost wages you'd imaging they are carrying the can. How he pins that on Cha-Low, who you'd assume took the club in good faith, is going to be interesting to see.

Maybe Niggle will use part of his obscene salary to pour some of his snake oil on those troubled waters...........

This - which is why it will be settled today with a contribution from the RFL!

Hope that's more accurate than some of your previous predictions!

Well, yeah but my feeling that the newco couldn't be deeply involved (if at all), is entirely based on the assumption that the administrator did everything properly, or at least was professional enough to adequately cover his tracks - if he didn't then I guess anything is possible with the RFL, who let's not forget acted as 'kingmaker', in all this, in it up to their necks. I'm still far from sure how it all occurred so maybe some clarity will emerge, though my guess is that, to save necks, 'someone' will pay £XXX to 'someone else' and the fog will descend once again. Court reports (if it gets that far..) would be interesting.

Another done deal, eh?

Think his source needs duffing up.

The argument could be that the Administrator was not allowed to do things properly as whoever he wished to sell to had to be OK'ed by the RFL and therefore they forced the liquidation by not agreeing bids that the Administrator found more favourable than the one ultimately accepted.
This is a very grey area. An Administrator has a duty to get the best deal for the creditors but whoever purchases a club in trouble also has to get a licence from the RFL to operate. So who is ultimately responsible for approving the purchaser of a club? I don't know the ins and outs of the law but I believe that if the club gets liquidated then the Administrator would only get paid if the assets raise sufficient funds. If this is the case would the Administrator have a case to sue the RFL if they did not approve the purchase by somebody who could have cleared his fee. Genuine question.

No news from today's meeting??

Nothing resolved today apparently, further talks planned.

Cheers Duckman.

They must think they are getting somewhere as they wouldn't be further talks.

Little to me too unless there is clear evidence of collusion between the RF and chalo. That would be needed to get over the fact that the RFL advertised for interested parties to set up a club in the Bradford area, with the conditions laid out for all to see. The RFL could not know who was going to come forward and what their plans were, other than they included the conditions they had imposed. What we do not know is what conditions there were on the offers the liquidator received that caused the RFL to turn them down. The fact that they had their conditions - the 12 points penalty etc - completely up front might be a clue ( we will offer £???K provided theres no points deduction by the RFL, don't have to have an academy, etc). So that brings us to the prospect that it was all a stitch up for Chalo, and therefore some clear evidence of collusion to ensure that Chalo alone could get the deal.

no worries, and I tend to agree, but why do I think that wont be the way the headline is spun in the morning??

Needs its own thread I think.

I'll try and move the posts about this subject across but this isn't the easiest thing for a techno ignoramus like me.

Yay I think I did it. Please can we keep all tribunal discussion on here and leave the 2018 thread for team and coaching discussion if there is a team and a coach to discuss at the end of all this...

Latest stuff here. www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/n ... ord_Bulls/ Not sure about the involvement of the Govt department BEIS.

Latest stuff here. www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/n ... ord_Bulls/ Not sure about the involvement of the Govt department BEIS.

Adey's thoughts on TotalRL.com here:

[iDon't be sidetracked by the "liquidation" nonsense that was pedalled at the time. If the claimants can demonstrate that this was in substance - if not in legal form - effectively a transfer of undertaking (that may be why the RFL are enjoined in the action, perhaps as a facilitator?) then there may well be a prima facie TUPE case

Whether this IS a TUPE-related action, or something else, we really do not know, though. So all we can do is speculate.

ps - the RFL did not buy any rights from the adminstrators. They bought some assets which they then supposedly sold on to Newco. The RFL already held all the rights regarding who could be admitted to the competition, and those rights trumped the normal commercial situation regaring selling assets and businesses the administrators were familiar with.   As Pettit made very clear in his statements at the time.

pps. makes you wonder if somewhere, between Bulls 4.0 and Bulls 5.0, the RFL effectively became the employer for a short period? Again, maybe in substance iof not in legal form?  Had not thought of that before, but could be a very strong reason why the RFL would be enjoined in the action?  The thick plottens...[/i