Kin ell...........BOMBSHELL
The plot thickens!
Two posts from Sothall Blade on S2
Post 1:
McCabe is accusing the Prince of accepting a financial bribe while he was a Saudi Government Minister.
Furthermore the bribe was used by the Prince as a means of topping up his investment in Sheffield United as he had fallen short on his payments. I think most Sheffield United fans (and beyond) would very be interested to read that.
Post 2:
See my previous post, which was cut and pasted from the legal documents linked to earlier.
I'm not sure why people don't seem to think this is big news.
See pages 9 and 10 of this document:-
https://shepwedd.com/sites/default/files/UTB v SUL - D_s SA for 20.6.18.pdf
The Charwell Loan
29. The Court will see reference to the “Charwell Loan” in two contexts:
a. Firstly, the circumstances of the Charwell Loan and its true nature (
namely a disguised inducement or bribe to Prince Abdullah in his role as Saudi Minister for Youth and Sports) form part of the Defendant’s allegations of unfair prejudice in its section 994 Petition.
b. Secondly, that its repayment on 30th April 2018 and in particular an application that the Defendant issued to secure its repayment on the due date, are deployed by both sides in very different ways to explain or justify the stances taken at this stage.
30. By the end of 2016
SUL had invested £1.6m more than UTB into Blades leading to a disparity in the respective partners’ investments in the company (Sewell 3 para 26 at [4/29/797]).
31. In February 2017 SUL was looking to divest itself of its interest in Blades, and the Properties, and a potential investor called Dr Rakan Al Harthy (“Dr Rakan”) was identified. In the talks that were ongoing,
Prince Abdullah secured an agreement by Dr Rakan to lend (through his company, Charwell Investments Limited) a sum of £3m to Blades. The loan was interest free with repayment due by 30th April 2018 [2/20/311].
32. By July 2017
UTB had still not injected £1.6m into Blades (to bring the partners to parity) and SUL was informed that Dr Rakan had agreed that UTB would assume £1.6m of the Charwell loan and repay it instead of Blades. Thus providing UTB’s share injection of £1.6m. In this way UTB secured further time to come up with the £1.6m and obtained further shares in Blades to that value.
33. At this stage Dr Rakan was the principal behind Sela Sports, a substantial company operating in the major Saudi media and sports industry. The Prince was the Saudi Minister for Youth and Sports (Petition paras 42-45 at [1/12/107]).
34.
SUL now has reason to believe that UTB never repaid the full £1.6m to Charwell and it infers that the majority of this sum was written off by Dr Rakan as a favour to the Prince (Sewell 3 para 64 at [4/29/807]).
This was a disguised means of conferring a benefit on the Prince which was a serious breach of the Prince’s duties to SUFC (SUL says that the directors of Blades had a duty not to act in such a way as might bring the Football Club into disrepute).
35. In the period leading up to the repayment date of 30th April 2018
Mr Giansiracusa sent an email to the Blades directors pointing out the potential dire consequences of a failure to repay including the possibility of Blades insolvency and a points deduction by the English Football League