Mill Financial Sues George Gillett Personally For $117 Million Over Liverpool Loan

Lending firm Mill Financial has sued George Gillett Jr. for breach of guarantee, claiming the Colorado financier personally owes $117 million that was connected to his investment in the Liverpool Football Club. In a 12-page complaint filed on Thursday in Manhattan’s New York state court, Mill Financial claims Gillett is personally liable, together with some of his business entities, under a guarantee of a loan that Mill Financial alleges has come due. Mill Financial filed in court a copy of an unlimited guarantee signed by Gillett in 2008. Mill Financial, which is based in Springfield, Virginia, reportedly refinanced a loan used by Gillett to buy a big stake in the famous Liverpool Football Club of the English Premier League in 2007. Gillett’s partner in the deal was Texas businessman Tom Hicks. According to the lawsuit, Gillett Football LLC borrowed $70 million in a January 2008 term loan from Mill Financial. Mill Financial says in the court document filed Thursday that the loan became due on August 13 but had not been paid in full. In the complaint, Mill Financial claims that Gillett and some of his business entities, like Booth Creek Management, issued guarantees that “‘unconditionally and absolutely guarantee[d]’ the “payment in full, promptly on demand.” It appears, according to the lawsuit, that Gillett entered into a high yielding term loan that carried a 19% annual interest rate. In the month before the loan allegedly came due in August, the amount owed by Gillett Football LLC was $89.8 million. Mill Financial notified Gillett in August that the loan was in default. In early September Gillett Football LLC did make a $431,000 payment, but Mill Financial claims “this amount was not sufficient to cure the default.” After tacking on extra fees, Mill Financial claims the amount now due is $117 million. Gillett, reached on Thursday night, declined to comment on the lawsuit. Mill Financial could not be reached for comment. The potential of massive personally liability to businessmen stemming from personal guarantees made on corporate loans has become an issue recently. As I reported earlier this month, Moses “Mark” Stern, a little-known commercial real estate investor, personally owes Citigroup $126 million under guarantees for which the bank has recently obtained court judgments. For Gillett, the Mill Financial lawsuit is the latest development in a saga that has gone on for months in courts from London to Texas. Gillett, together with Hicks, lost control of Liverpool FC in recent weeks, unable to stop the Royal Bank of Scotland, which financed their original purchase of the team, from selling Liverpool FC. The bank, which was able to sell the team because it served as collateral for the loans used to purchase it, sold Liverpool FC to Boston Red Sox owner John Henry’s New England Sports Ventures at a price that was lower than expected. Mill Financial had reportedly emerged at one point with a bid of its own to purchase Liverpool FC, but was unsuccessful. Mill Financial’s loan to Gillett Football LLC was collateralized by Gillett Football’s interest in Football Investments LLC, court documents say, but it appears that collateral may have disappeared when the Royal Bank of Scotland sold the team. At the same time as the Liverpool issue has been going on, Gillett’s Nascar venture, Richard Petty Motorsports, has reportedly been in financial trouble. Gillett did make a fortune selling hockey’s Montreal Canadiens in 2009.

WikiLeaks Founder Assange to Remain in Custody

A British judge granted bail yesterday to Julian Assange but the WikiLeaks’ founder will remain in custody for at least another 48 hours after Swedish prosecutors said they would challenge the decision. Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, who published United States confidential diplomatic cables on his websites, has already spent a week in a UK jail following his surrender to police in a Swedish sex-crimes investigation. He denies any wrongdoing and his lawyers said he plans to fight Sweden's extradition request. His publications on Nigeria included a discussion between former US ambassador Robin Renee Sanders and President Goodluck Jonathan during the dying days of former President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, and revelation that Shell planted deputies within Nigerian civil service amongst others. Britain's High Court will hear the Swedish appeal, although it wasn't immediately clear when, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Assange's lawyer Mark Stephens said his client's relief at the bail decision had already evaporated, calling it "unfortunate" that "the Swedes won't abide by the umpire's decision." "They clearly will not spare any expense but to keep Mr. Assange in jail," Stephens told journalists outside the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court in London. "This is really turning into a show trial." Celebrity supporters in the court and pro-WikiLeaks protesters outside the building had earlier cheered Judge Howard Riddle's decision to free Assange. Assange's mother Christine, who was flown to Britain by Australian media outlets, watched the hearing nervously from the public gallery but gave a huge smile as the judge announced his decision. "I just want to thank everyone who's turned up to show their support and who's taken an interest," Christine Assange said. Under the ruling yesterday, Assange would be subjected to strict bail conditions. Stephens said the court was demanding 200,000 pounds ($316,000) in bail up front before Assange could be freed. He would also have to wear an electronic tag, live at a registered address, report to police every evening and observe two four-hour curfews each day. Several wealthy supporters have put up a total of 240,000 pounds ($380,000) as a guarantee for Assange, his lawyers said. Assange's next court appearance was set for January 11, ahead of a full hearing on February 7 and 8. Lawyer Gemma Lindfield, acting for Sweden, had asked the court to deny Assange bail because the allegations in Sweden were serious, Assange had only weak ties to Britain and he had enough money "to abscond”. At a court hearing last week, Lindfield said Assange was accused of rape, molestation and unlawful coercion. She told the court one woman had accused Assange of pinning her down and refusing to use a condom on August 14 in Stockholm. That woman also accused Assange of molesting her. A second woman accused Assange of having sex with her without a condom while he was a guest at her Stockholm home and she was asleep. In Sweden, a person who has sex with an unconscious, drunk or sleeping person can be convicted of rape and sentenced to up to six years in prison. Assange denies the allegations and has not been charged in Sweden. His lawyers said the allegations stem from a dispute over “consensual but unprotected sex”.

The real emancipation of the Niger Delta

I WOULD lend my unreserved support to any group genuinely engaged in a principled and focused emancipation struggle for the peoples of the Niger Delta. If I perceived this sincerity and clarity of purpose in groups such as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the Niger Delta People Volunteer Force (NDPVF), the Niger Delta Vigilantes (NVD), and the Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC), I would have urged them to carry on their onslaught until all oil exploration and production activities in the Niger delta are completely grounded and sustained as such. At that stage, the government would have no choice but to begin earnest work on the environmental and developmental problems of the Niger Delta. I believe that now, not later, is the time for our government to pay its debt to the peoples of the Niger Delta. Oloibiri is a testimony to how very deserted the Niger Delta would be once the oil dries up. But it is now unassailable truth that the existing armed groups in the Niger Delta are neither fighting for the emancipation of the Niger Delta, nor do they have a clear understanding of the sort of emancipation they profess to pursue. The tactics of these groups are well known and many of them may very well be appropriate in a genuine revolutionary struggle or guerrilla warfare for justice. But some, such as the mindless killing of helpless oil workers, kidnapping of children, and terrorizing or harassing residents of the regions they claim to be fighting for, are hardly justifiable. But the biggest telltale of the insincerity of these groups is the contradictions in the lifestyle, positions, and allies of their leaders. The struggle for supremacy between the NDPVF and the NVD was never a liberation struggle. The early political and financial patrons of these groups (such as the Rivers State Government under the leadership of Peter Odili, which was widely alleged to have funded and armed the NVD to battle the NDPVF) did not believe in the liberation of the Niger Delta. Matter of fact, many of these politicians have exacerbated the woes of the Niger Delta. Today, Dokubo Asari, Tom Ateke, Henry Okah, Tamuno Kuna, etc are all multimillionaires. Thanks to revenues from illegal oil sales, ransoms for release of hostages, bribes from oil companies, and the unaccounted-for security votes of our governments. As we now know, the chief ambition of these men is acquisition of personal wealth, political clout, immunity for crime, and godfatherhood for aspiring politicians in the Niger Delta. The implication of all this is that the the injury and injustice done to the peoples of the Niger Delta have doubled. Not only have they been deprived of the benefits of their natural resources, they now can no more sleep with two eyes closed. Violence upon violence upon violence upon violence has made the region more hellish than Gehenna. In addition to taking the resources of the people without due compensation, in terms of environmental and developmental justice, the government has failed to rid the region of these self-serving, blood-sucking groups. Contrarily, the government has offered an unholy amnesty with daily supplication for these groups to disarm. Yes, there have been some successful military crackdowns, but the general approach of the government has been that of pampering the criminals or surface-scratching the problem. "Egunje" has been and continues to be lavished on leaders of these groups and their members, on traditional rulers and local chiefs, and on middlemen "peace-brokers." Do we need an Einstein to tell us that the last thing the beneficiaries of violence in the region would seek is to stop the flow of this easy money? Anyway, the violence continues and the peoples of the Niger Delta continue to live in constant fear. While this otiose strategy of supplication and prayers for peace - to the groups and their leaders, to traditional rulers and chiefs, to members of the public, to oil companies, etc. - is being carried on by the government; the very fundamental issue of environmental and developmental justice for the Niger Delta remains as unresolved as it has been since the first barrel of oil was removed from Oloibiri. Now we wonder: our resources have been taken forcefully away from us; our environment continues to be destroyed in a most unconscionable manner; our traditional means of livelihood has been lethally ravished; how about feeling sure that our grandparents could get a peaceful sleep in their shacks or letting our children go to school without fear of some violence befalling them or sitting down at dust with a friend to have a drink peacefully in the open? Can we not also do that?

DDC machines stolen at Lagos airport

The porous nature of the nation’s airports has again been laid bare as some of the Direct Data Capture machines for the registration of voters for the 2011 elections were allegedly stolen at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos. Sources at the airport, who made this known to our correspondent on Wednesday, did not give the number of units that was stolen. But they said the incident took place on Monday night at the Cargo Terminal of MMIA. They also claimed that the machines were awaiting clearance by Independent National Electoral Commission agent when the theft took place. The Spokesman for the Airport Command of the Nigerian Police Force, Mr. Benedict Ifeanyi, confirmed the incident. He said the police and other security agencies had commenced an investigation into the matter. The Nigerian Aviation Handling Company, the ground handling firm which offloaded the cargo, was yet to make official report on the incident as at 10pm on Wednesday. He said, “As at now, I can’t tell you the quantity that was stolen, neither will I be able to tell you who was and who was not on duty and not on duty when the incident happened. “We can’t tell now whose fault it is whether it was the Nigeria Customs Service or the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria or the airline or the ground handling firm. All that will be determined when NAHCO makes an official report.” Our correspondent gathered that the Nigerian Customs Service Area Comptroller, Military Airport Commandant and the Director of the State Security Service were at the Cargo Terminal on Wednesday to examine the remaining machines at the ramp. An indigenous Information Technology company, Zinox Technologies Limited, had brought in 14,000 units of the DDC machines from China and Dubai, on Sunday. The quantity is part of the 80,000 units of the electronic equipment the company was given contract to supply by INEC. Two other companies— Haier Electrical Appliances Corporation of China and Avante of United States— also won contracts to supply 30,000 and 22,000 units respectively . Efforts by our correspondent to get the clearing agent, identified as Services Solutions Limited, to comment on the alleged theft of the machines were not successful. An official at the Cargo Terminal of the MMIA, who pleaded anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the matter, also confirmed that some of the DDC machines had been stolen. He said, “Three shipments have arrived so far. The first one arrived earlier. The second one arrived on Sunday evening while the third one came in at about 5:10am on Monday morning. “We arrived office on Tuesday morning and discovered that some parts of the last two shipments had been removed.” It was gathered that the equipment were offloaded by NAHCO Plc and that Skyway Aviation Handling Company Limited was to warehouse them pending their clearance. The NAHCO spokesperson , Ms Bekky IJyuse, who also confirmed the incident , said that although the company (NAHCO) offloaded the DDC machines, the agent decided to give it to SAHCOL to warehouse. She said it was the responsibility of SAHCOL to liaise with the NCS on what happened to the cargo after they were cleared. SAHCOL’s spokesman, Mr. Basil Agboarumi, however, said that the company (SAHCOL) did not take possession of the two shipments that were tampered with. According to him, the first set of DDC machines that came in were still safe in the warehouse of the company. He added, “Whatever happened, happened at the ramp.The first shipment that came in was brought into our warehouse, and nothing happened to it. “But the other two shipments which were said to have been poached from the ramp ‘happened’ at the ramp, which is not our jurisdiction. That is the jurisdiction of FAAN. We don’t know anything about that.” It was gathered that Customs officials at the airport said that their Area Comptroller had to give clearance before sensitive goods like the DDC machines could be cleared. The NCS spokesman at the MMIA, Mr. Saturday Odum, said that the Customs was always interested in any goods coming into the country. “The goods in questions are at the tarmac, and if anything had happened to them, they happened at the ramp,” he said. Airline and ground handling officials at the terminal, however, said the problem was caused by the porous nature of security at the airport in general. One of them said, “There is no control at the ramp there. Anything can happen. It is like the case of a market square. People steal things here any how. It is because this one has to do with election materials that it raising dust.”

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