Manchester City and the Premier League have both claimed victory in a legal battle over rules relating to commercial deals.
The club launched legal action against the associated party transaction (APT) rules earlier this year on the grounds they were anti-competitive.
On Monday, City released a statement saying the tribunal had declared the APT rules “unlawful” and that the league had abused a dominant position under competition law.
They added: “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 Premier League said the majority of City’s challenges in the case were “rejected” but added: “The tribunal did, however, identify a small number of discrete elements of the rules which do not, in their current form, comply with competition and public law requirements.
“These elements can quickly and effectively be remedied by the League and clubs.”
Read more:
City sue Premier League over financial rules
What punishment could City face if guilty of charges?
City’s era-defining hearing could impact world sport
What are the Associated Party Transaction rules?
• The Premier League’s rules require any club, its players, manager or any ‘senior official’ to run dealings with ‘associated parties’ past them.
• ‘Associated parties’ are companies or people who have a significant interest in the relevant club, financially or otherwise.
• The Premier League’s board then reviews each transaction, to assess whether it believes they represent a fair market value.
• The league says the rule helps to build “fairness” across the division, by ending a “reliance on enhanced commercial revenues linked to the club’s ownership”.
👉 Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts 👈
The panel found partly in City’s favour, agreeing that shareholder loans – where shareholders or ‘associated parties’ lend to or borrow money from the clubs they own – should not be excluded from those rules.
The panel also agreed with City’s claim an updated version of the APT rules, which came into force in February this year, were unlawful because of wording changes, which tightened the interpretation of what constitutes ‘fair market value’ in commercial agreements, was unlawful.
City’s other claims against the Premier League were dismissed.
The case is separate from the 115 charges facing City under Premier League rules, which they allegedly breached by failing to provide accurate financial information over a nine-year period starting in 2009 until 2018.
