A N.Y. state court judge on Tuesday dismissed the five-year-old case against Royal Bank of Scotland for its role in the controversial sale of Liverpool.
Mill Financial, a lender to the club at the time of the '10 sale, contended RBS had orchestrated a below market sale, thereby wiping out the U.S. lender’s loan to one of the previous owners.
In her ruling, Judge Eileen Bransten agreed with Mill that RBS had violated the lender agreement that LFC creditors Mill, RBS and Wells Fargo had set up prior to the '10 sale. RBS was supposed to notify Mill about the sales process and did not. But she then wrote Mill could not prove that resulted in a lower price.
“In the absence of any evidence regarding what the sale price would have been had Mill received such notice, the Court is constrained to conclude that Mill’s damages are entirely speculative and unfounded,” Bransten wrote.
The ruling appears to at long last bring to a conclusion the troubled sale of LFC. In '08 indebted Owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett put the team up for sale. Mill had lent to Gillett, becoming a creditor too.
Mill sued Gillett in the N.Y. state court shortly after the '10 sale to New England Sports Ventures, and added RBS as a defendant the following year. NESV, which became Fenway Sports, was not a defendant in the case.
Mill’s case against Gillett for defaulting in the debt remains, and Mill could appeal Bransten’s ruling.