Around this time Rangers proceeded to accept an improved offer from Elite (the Elite Agreement), without first notifying SDI Retail of the terms offered and thus denying it the opportunity to match it. Indeed, SDI Retail only learned of the Elite Agreement after seeing a statement on Rangers’ website describing Elite as their “new, non-exclusive partners” and providing a link to purchase Rangers kit from a website hosted by Elite. (sep 11, 2018 – sep 20, 2018)

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Once again, SDI Retail applied to the High Court for injunctive relief. As far as SDI Retail was concerned, Rangers had wrongfully denied it the right to match Elite’s amended offer and argued that their “competitive position would be seriously undermined” if Rangers were permitted to retain the ability to grant further rights to a third party on more favourable terms. Rangers on the other hand, argued that allowing SDI Retail to exercise their matching right on more than one occasion would enable SDI Retail to “block the grant of non-exclusive rights to third parties and thus exercise exclusivity over a right where it did not have exclusivity under the Retail Agreement”. The question for the High Court hearing SDI Retail’s application was whether the matching right could in fact be exercised on a repeated basis and if so, whether SDI Retail were entitled to injunctive relief restraining Rangers from future breaches and requiring them to undo their existing breach.

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