Hicks and Gillett back to sue Liverpool new owners

• zocoss

  30 Sep 11, 11:49

  Former owners Hicks and Gillett lodge compensation claim over Liverpool sale
  

   

  

  Legal fight: Former Liverpool owners George Gillett, left, and Tom Hicks

   

   

  Former Liverpool owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett are refusing to give up their attempts to win damages.

  The pair were told in February that they could not go through the US courts but papers have since been filed in England.

  The claims are being made against the club's owners, former Anfield directors and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

   

• zocoss

  30 Sep 11, 22:12

  Tom Hicks and George Gillett back to challenge Liverpool with new lawsuit

  The dark spectre of Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jnr returned to Liverpool on Thursday night as the former owners launched a multi-million lawsuit against the club.

  

  In the red: George Gillett and Tom Hicks are trying to recoup some of the money they lost when Liverpool were taken over Photo: PA

  By Chris Bascombe

   

  Hicks and Gillett are suing Anfield’s new custodians, Fenway Sports Group, for hundreds of millions in damages following their ousting from the Merseyside club a year ago.

  They are also taking legal action against their former creditors Royal Bank of Scotland, former Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton and the remaining members of the Kop hierarchy who oversaw the demise of the old regime.

  The former co-owners failed in an attempt to switch legal proceedings to the United States last February, and their latest efforts to be reimbursed for their huge losses are being dismissed by Anfield sources as futile.

  A date for a court hearing could still take months to determine. But papers have now been served on the key figures who forced Hicks and Gillett out of the club during a dramatic week at the High Court 12 months ago.

  Hicks famously described the events leading to the takeover by FSG in October, 2010 as an "epic swindle".

  He and Gillett were forced to sell after failing to repay debts worth £282 million with the RBS, missing a series of deadlines.

  At the time, fellow board members Broughton, former managing director Christian Purslow and current chief executive Ian Ayre used their majority votes on the Anfield board to push the owners out.