Manchester City are said to have scored a major victory over the Premier League after their new rules on sponsorship deals were branded as ‘unlawful’
A panel of retired judges have ruled that the Associated Party Transactions (APT) regulations are unlawful. They ruled the regulations, aimed at preventing clubs from inflating deals with companies linked to their owners, breach the Competition Act.
City, who are currently facing 115 charges of breaking Premier League financial rules in a separate case, took the Premier League to court earlier this year. The Abu-Dhabi outfit slammed the rules as unfair.
According to the Daily Mail, who have seen the findings, it has been found the Premier League were wrong to reject a wide-ranging new sponsorship deal City had lined up with Etihad late last year. City’s current deal features heavily in the separate case on the 115 charges.
The stoppage of another deal involving an Abu Dhabi-based bank was also ruled as unfair.
lord pannick, the top lawyer spearheading city’s defence against the 115 charges, launched a series of claims against apt rules. the kc has claimed the rules were designed to end their reign of success and were the result of a “tyranny of the majority”
While many of City’s claims were rejected, they scored victories in seven key arguments – and they only needed to show the rules were unlawful for one reason.
In a statement, City said: “Following today’s publication of the Rule X Arbitral Tribunal Award, Manchester City Football Club thanks the distinguished members of the Arbitral Tribunal for their work and considerations and welcomes their findings.
“The club has succeeded with its claim: the Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules have been found to be unlawful and the Premier League’s decisions on two specific MCFC sponsorship transactions have been set aside
“The tribunal found that both the original APT rules and the current, (amended) APT Rules violate UK competition law and violate the requirements of procedural fairness.
“The Premier League was found to have abused its dominant position. The tribunal has determined both that the rules are structurally unfair and that the Premier League was specifically unfair in how it applied those rules to the club in practice
“The rules were found to be discriminatory in how they operate, because they deliberately excluded shareholder loans.
“As well as these general findings on legality, the tribunal has set aside specific decisions of the Premier League to restate the fair market value of two transactions entered into by the club.
“The tribunal held that the Premier League had reached the decisions in a procedurally unfair manner.
“The tribunal also ruled that there was an unreasonable delay in the Premier League’s fair market value assessment of two of the club’s sponsorship transactions, and so the Premier League breached its own rules.”
The Premier League’s case against City over 115 alleged breaches of financial rules is now in its third week of an expected 10, with City maintaining their innocence.
