There was a fascinating and completely unfounded angle to the Daily Record’s story today about Celtic’s forthcoming AGM, “Celtic’s directors insist Rangers (sic) were dealt with fairly”.
Oh no they don’t. This is an incredible dose of poison to inject into the Celtic family.
The matter in question is a resolution before the AGM urging Celtic to write to the SFA and Uefa regarding club licencing for season 2011/12. As a result of this resolution Celtic’s written response to the AGM confirms that they questioned the SFA’s licensing at the time directly with the Association, a fact which had not previously been revealed. The matter was also raised with Uefa. Both bodies backed the SFA actions.
I knew how this played out at the time and I was keen for the matter to reach the AGM, where questions could be asked and responses given, but lines like “Celtic’s directors insist Rangers were dealt with fairly” are put out just to mess with you.
The Record addresses another point in the same article, “the Scottish champions are also acutely aware of how official action would heighten tensions between fans of the two clubs”. If you think Charles Green was the only one on the receiving end of threats and intimidation last year, when these matters came to light, you’re wrong.
Celtic pursued the licencing question as far as they were permitted to do, this is quite different than insisting Rangers (sic) were dealt with fairly. The SFA are not interested and Uefa are not interested. As a result of this resolution, this issue can be properly examined in front of the supporters.
The club’s public comments, or often, the lack of public comments, put the safety of their employees and supporters, which was already acutely in focus, first. Not so long ago office staff at Celtic had to go through training on how to open the mail following specific attacks.
Despite popular mythology, Celtic don’t control the SFA, re-orientating that organisation will take a while. The issue of licensing in 2011 was pursued as far as the club were allowed to do so. Get along to the AGM, look the board in the eye and ask your questions on this. Celtic also have a responsibility – and a lot of formal security advice – to staff, each other and all of us when it comes to public comment. This is the world Celtic has to operate in. The sooner we are out of here the better.
Sean Fallon: Celtic’s Iron Man, drink in the legend:
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fritzsong
So we give them carte blanche to cheat.Think you might be missing the point.This is about Celtic and the SFA.
My employer would and does have a responsibility for my safety at work as does Celtic.
The authorities should be doing something about this. Celtic should be doing something about it.
There was a summit because the orcs caused trouble on the field at Celtic park.
If we accept this we go to the back of the bus again.
Did our forefathers do it all for nothing.
Faith of our fathers springs to mind.
Sorry Greendreamz but you have made some ridiculous points regarding demographics within Scotland. It is crude to assume that the majority of people in Scotland side with the Rangers group of clubs. Your post smacks of victim hood. I sincerely wish to not upset you but am infuriated by the demographics angle. It makes the assumption that all Catholics support Celtic and all Protestants are against us.
Way-hey – he does it EVERY time. “The debt was coming down”. Please get a decent journalist in next time to challenge that one.
Steam will be coming out of Paul67’s ears. No-one annoys him more than Paul Murray!
Murray did say it was the club having an AGM not the holding company?
Can we have some perspective about football’s place in society? A cheating football association does not compare with genuine persecution around the world.
My last post should have said ‘seems to make the assumption. ..’.
Turkeybhoy
pep mcmoist wants to know if he can have chips with his carte blanche
Greendreamz,
This has nothing to do with the demographic, this is to do with the boards legal responsibility to protect the interests of the shareholders, by not challenging on the license issue they have failed which cost the shareholders financially.
paul murray on bbc sport stating the board had a legal obligation to comply with their resolution request for the agm
thatll be the same legal obligation to produce accounts and pay taxes when you were on the board then paul?
irony fc
I could probably have used a more measured tone in the post to Greendreamz. Apologies Greendreamz.
winning captains 18:51
Steam will be coming out of Paul67′s ears. No-one annoys him more than Paul Murray!
Murray did say it was the club having an AGM not the holding company?
————————————————————————————
I’m very much in Paul’s camp there then! If he says “the debt was coming down” one more time I think I’ll explode!
He defnitely said King invested £20m in the CLUB and lost it. Which is strange as the club still exists, doesn’t it? Wasn’t it the holding company that got liquidated….?
re this infamous £20m
wasnt there a suggestion the lying king received a lump sum back?
or was that an ebt?
todays post has opened a real can of worms…….do you now regret it PAUL.?????
Good evening friends.
Looks like a very interesting lead article today and a lively debate. Off for a wee catch up….
Celtic (keep) Quiet News
Che
I’m enjoying the ole Tunisian soup.
A bit like Gentile as it has a bit of a kick..
TBJ
:-)
BT
enjoy it mate,
youll pay for it later
TBJ
Shhh
its gone all quiet now everyone must be away listening to radio clyde
or TBJ has caused a meltdown
Che
As jinkster said no drink when visited this hotel.
Times have changed although the hotel may not have. O)
Turkeybhoy
18:38 on
14 October, 2013
If I recall correctly,the day that THEY went bust, THEY owed Celtic £80,000 in vandalsm costs.
The Board could and if called upon to do so, would argue that had asking questions led to the club being on the end of legal action, shareholders interests could have been damaged.
As we all well know, the Board will interpret shareholders interests in a manner that best suits it.
King fined R3.28m after reaching plea deal
by Ernest Mabuza , 29 August 2013, 14:22
THE long-running battle between the state and businessman Dave King came to a close on Thursday when King reached a plea and sentence agreement with the state.
In terms of the agreement at the South Gauteng High Court, sitting at the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court, King pleaded guilty to 41 counts of contravening the Income Tax Act and agreed to pay a fine of R80,000 per count, or R3.28m.
The counts related to his wrongful failure to make certain required disclosures in his annual income tax returns to the South African Revenue Service (SARS) for more than 10 years, and for failure to submit tax returns for his companies Metlika and Ben Nevis.
Other facts relevant to the agreed sentence were that the South African Revenue Service had instituted various actions against King and would recover R706.7m. King also agreed to pay the Criminal Assets Recovery Account R8.75m within 30 days.
The other counts were withdrawn.
King was originally indicted on 322 counts including fraud, tax evasion and evasion of exchange control regulations, as well as money-laundering and racketeering.
The counts related, among others, to a failure to submit tax returns, fraudulent misrepresentations in his tax returns, and devising and implementing an allegedly fraudulent scheme to “externalise” his assets to evade income tax and obligations involving R1bn.
Explaining why the state had reached the agreement, prosecutor Arno Rossouw said it had considered the length of the trial that would ensue if King had pleaded not guilty.
Mr Rossouw said some of the witnesses had passed away and the prosecution would have needed testimony from expert witnesses, some of whom were overseas.
He said King assets had been restrained for more than seven years.
The court found King guilty and sentenced him to pay the fine of R3.28m on Friday.
http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/2013/08/29/king-fined-r3.28m-after-reaching-plea-deal
GlassTwoThirdsFull – Murray knows fine well. The same club rubbish is being used by the lot of them as a means to extract continued loyalty and cash for the gullible bigots. Roll on the ASA decision!
Evening Timland from a warmish hun free mountain valley.
No been on for a few days, had a visit from Auldheid and his Mrs. a total pleasure, and yer mhan has some stories to tell.
Had a scan back, and am very disappointed, disolusioned at the prospect for the game in scotland.
It seems the board are playing funny beggers again, a few days ago we seemed to be in the driving seat, now we are firmly at the back of the bus.
I will wager now……….
It will take a scenario like the Celts For Change to get any answers or any action.
HH
I don’t believe for a minute the Spivs at Sevco are stupid, a delay of the AGM suits them as they have at least another month to do their dirty deeds and not answer questions about it or face a vote.
Releasing that King statement when the stock exchange was closed was no accident either.
fritzsong
18:35 on
14 October, 2013
Some of the stuff on here about standing up to be counted is, at best, naive and, at worst, plain disingenuous. The death threat mob doesn’t care who gets the message – your wife, your child, your parents – as long as the message gets delivered.
A press person told me that there are good reasons not to tell the truth about servo. One – it’s commercial suicide. Two – they have a bad habit of shooting the messenger.
If things are so rotten, surely it is time to do a Belfast Celtic.
BT
I have often commented that 99.9% of the info we get on CQN is from the punters and not the lead article.
What legal action would that be then, sounds a bit of a scaremonger answer to me, the CFCB should have been informed immediately the SFA granted the license, there is no possible legal action could have come from that.
Glass Two thirds Full@18.45
Not sure who you are referring to, but no doubt some numptie. Alistair Johnson has often made said claim, and it has been repeated ad nauseum by the MSM. Let me clarify. When Lloyds Bank took over the Bank of Scotland it inherited not only all of that company’s debts/unpaid loans etc (ie MIH to the tune of £850 million) it also inherited the credit lines advanced to various companies, one of which was Rangers FC. Johnson was right in one respect, but what he was referring was money advanced as the equivalent of an overdraft, ie facilities made available directly to Rangers FC. As Walter Smith stated at the time, “Lloyds Bank are in charge”. Lloyds made damn sure that whatever else happened, that overdraft was going to be cleared, before the old club were going into admin.
“The club’s public comments, or often, the lack of public comments, put the safety of their employees and supporters, which was already acutely in focus, first. Not so long ago office staff at Celtic had to go through training on how to open the mail following specific attacks”
Our ancestors will be spinning in their graves. Fear to tell the truth! Say nothing lest the ‘orange bogie man’ get you. Our fellow supporters have been attacked, injured and murdered for decades yet never once were we never deterred from supporting the club our fathers created?
Never ever back down from an aggressor.
Never a big admirer of De Valera however I am minded of his brilliant put down of Winston Churchill at the end of WW2 when Churchill criticised Irish neutrality. It has some small relevance as to the current Celtic PLC – like fecking growing a pair and standing up against injustice. And least any one mention – it won’t be you being attacked, well it was and in my friends case still is – Celtic supporters from North Belfast.
“there is a small nation that stood alone not for one year or two, but for several hundred years against aggression; that endured spoliations, famines, massacres in endless succession; that was clubbed many times into insensibility, but that each time on returning consciousness took up the fight anew; a small nation that could never be got to accept defeat and has never surrendered her soul?
Have the current board surrendered our soul? I believe they may very well have just done exactly that.
Aulheid 17.09 thank you for taking the time for that.It mentions the CFCB.
Am I correct in thinking CFCB omission from the resolution as put forward
by our board invalidates it,as it differs from the original resolution presented
by both Canamalar & Morrissey?
I probably am wrong and the Board are tidying up the resolution but i feel
uneasy about how they are handling this
no wonder listening to phone-ins/sports shows are what a total farce,
would it not be better to quote the resolution instead of making up stories that
are just off the radar!!idiocy
King still on the hook for insider trading?
September 10 2013 at 08:00am
By Allan Greenblo
There are two King codes on corporate governance. The one, more famous, is endorsed by the Institute of Directors and resonates in the Companies Act on good governance. The other, now infamous, emerges from the actions of Dave King whose attempts to diddle the taxman represent a textbook case on how an erstwhile JSE-listed company should not be governed.
The supine mea culpa issued by King, in agreeing to the settlement with the SA Revenue Service (Sars) at R707 million (additional to the R350m from the sale of attached assets), sharply contradicts the arrogance displayed during his decade-long battle. But it isn’t only this that makes his statement remarkable. It’s the implicit admission that Ben Nevis and King are effectively one and the same.
There could be implications, and there should be. Ben Nevis, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands and purportedly owned by a Guernsey-registered trust, was integral to King’s tax avoidance structure. It enabled him to contend that Ben Nevis and not he was the controlling shareholder of Specialised Outsourcing Limited (SOL). Exposure of the hoax opens a Pandora’s box of insider trading.
Shares in SOL, founded by King, were placed at 50c. Based on what the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) described in 2010 as “alleged deliberate manipulation of financial statements, financial reports and recorded earnings… with a view to enhance the growth profile and share price of the company”, the share price peaked at R70 and subsequently fell out of bed.
SOL, of which King was chief executive, was not in the 1990s obliged by JSE rules to disclose directors’ dealings. So the extent of his offloading, in the guise of Ben Nevis, was not publicly known. The controlling shareholder had sold its 70 percent stake at a R1.2 billion profit, rapidly dispatched to King’s offshore accounts.
The NPA’s intended prosecution was instituted after a series of complaints by institutional investors in SOL. These included Old Mutual, Sanlam, Coronation and Southern Life. That the prosecution did not proceed reflects more on the NPA’s competence than on King’s innocence.
Of the charges that were to have been brought, none was for insider trading. Of the R12m in fines he must pay as part of the Sars settlement, none is for insider trading.
Yet in 2004, the directorate of market abuse at the Financial Services Board (FSB) had investigated SOL for insider trading and handed its files to the criminal investigation authorities. It said at the time: “The directorate could not consider the possibility of a civil action against any party with regard to SOL as the transactions which were investigated occurred before the Insider Trading Act came into operation.”
Insider trading was illegal under the 1973 Companies Act. Criminality aside, new legislation provides for civil proceedings where fines of up to four times the gains made from a trade may be levied. The FSB is empowered to pursue transgressors and to compensate those who might have been prejudiced by the offending transactions; in this case, the institutions invested in SOL on behalf of clients.
What counts in King’s favour is the argument that civil claims against him have been prescribed by the time limit during which they should have been brought. But from when does prescription run? From the time the insider trading took place, or from the time the regulator and the prejudiced institutions could identify the transgressor? If the latter, then the evidence is in King’s admission that he was Ben Nevis.
It’s easier to show insider trading in civil actions, on a balance of probabilities, than in criminal actions, where it must be proven beyond reasonable doubt. At least the balance of probabilities suggests that King committed insider trading on a grand scale, by selling securities on the basis of non-public information, severely to the detriment of investors not privy to it.
King’s newly found morality compensates Sars. It does not extend to others at the receiving end of financial damages in the collapse of SOL’s share price. Although the 1998 Insider Trading Act is not retrospective, it does allow the FSB directorate to investigate and prosecute alleged insider trading offences under the old Companies Act. Where actions are criminal, there’s no time constraint on prosecution.
Perhaps it would be a good idea for King not to put aside his cheque book just yet.
Allan Greenblo is the editorial director of Today’s Trustee (www.totrust.co.za), a quarterly magazine mainly for trustees of retirement funds.
http://www.iol.co.za/business/opinion/king-still-on-the-hook-for-insider-trading-1.1575272
Insider trading is a victimless crime
by David Gleason, 12 September 2013, 05:11
IN A column in Business Report on Tuesday, Today’s Trustee editorial director Allan Greenblo said Dave King, who attempted to diddle the taxman and ended up being relieved of R1.057bn by the South African Revenue Service, should still be charged with insider trading.
Greenblo says King perpetrated a hoax. Its exposure “opens a Pandora’s box of insider trading”. Perhaps. But I take issue with the criminalisation of insider trading. In my view the King case is different in that he clearly told a pack of lies to potential investors. That’s fraud, in my book.
http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2013/09/12/insider-trading-is-a-victimless-crime
Oglah
I have stated on here many times that I believe the board has done exactly that.
Quonno at 19.18
What sort of question could get you into trouble in a legal sense.
In terms of the AGM resolution, much of the debate will be depend on what folk want from it.
Personally I never thought the resolution would be accepted, or go to UEFA, (as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit to them) but what it has done already is to tell the SFA and the msm that clubs have shareholders whom they are answerable to and they have a voice and can exercise it. This has never happened before to my knowledge
Those voices will be heard at the AGM armed with what rules were ignored and what SFA statements were misleading
http://www.onfieldsofgreen.com/crystal-myth-the-untold-story-of-the-wee-tax-case/
and what I will be looking for is some form of statement that says the SFA, without prejudice, admit to mistakes in their processes and will undertake a lesson learning review whose recommendations to avoid a repeat will be published with a plan for action.
I think Peter Lawwell himself would be happy to be armed with that in his SFA role.