Dave King has lost his appeal at the Inner Court today, and the game appears to be up for the South African tax cheat, who now must put together a share prospectus and make a binding offer to buy every Sevco share not under his control.
The verdict, which was delivered in a timeframe so quick that I’m frankly astounded, makes it clear that his counsel’s argument in relation to him being a separate creature from NOAL have been utterly rejected by the court. His legal defence – that he has no control over that “trust” – have been deemed irrelevant by today’s verdict where the judges have said that they don’t care whether NOAL makes the offer or whether King himself does, but that it has to be done.
We know King controls NOAL. He has made this abundantly clear throughout the last two years; indeed, he told the Sevco AGM that £4 million in funds to get through the season would come from his “family trust” over which he allegedly had no control.
Sheer nonsense. And no surprise that the £4 million itself has never shown up.
Does King have the money for compliance?
You know what, I think he might.
But I also suspect, strongly, that he has told the South African tax man less than he was legally obliged to. In other words, he probably has it salted away somewhere but they don’t know that he does. It’s clear that his deposition to the court – where he claimed essentially to be skint – was more for the regulators back home than it was for a Scottish audience who has heard no end of his nonsense over the course of his Ibrox “reign.”
If I’m right he’s in one Hell of a quandary here.
He can’t produce it or they will rightly want to know where he got it.
But he can’t not produce it now after a court has ordered him to.
We’ll see. According to Trisidium over on The Scottish Football Monitor, he has told the Sevco board that in the event of this order that NOAL would pay up … but that’s typical of King and I don’t believe a word he says and neither should they.
I think we’re in the endgame for this guy, and if that’s true the club is going to need to act quickly to cut the tie or get sucked down the plughole with him.