Dermot Desmond

Such a generous investor..

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Dermot Desmond is suing the owner of an exclusive private golf club outside London — where staff dress all in white and address guests as “sir” and “madam” — over concerns about transactions worth more than £6 million.

Desmond and the former McLaren boss Ron Dennis allege that £6.2 million was improperly paid to the golf club’s founder, the millionaire property developer Frederick Green, and his wife, Lurana “Rainy” Churchill Green. The claims are denied.

Desmond has been locked in a dispute with the club’s executives for more than a year and has written a number of letters in which he has railed against the management of the club.

In one open letter, he urged the club’s other members to make a stand. He said: “If we do not stand united against this Putinesque regime, the integrity and standing of the club will be profoundly and permanently compromised.”


Desmond has been joined in his case by Dennis and a top English barrister called John Kelsey-Fry, who filed the proceedings last month against Queenwood golf club, the Greens, and Gerard Tvedt, a local businessman who is executive chairman of the club.




No documents have yet been filed. Court records show that there are two cases taken under the Companies Act, one of which relates to a claim of unfair prejudice. The other is an attempt to recover compensation.

Some of the details of the case were revealed in a preliminary ruling by a High Court judge in London in December. That judgment related to a pre-action disclosure application by Dennis, Desmond and Kelsey-Fry in which they sought discovery of key documents related to their claim. In that judgment, Mr Justice Miles made it clear that the plaintiffs were suing over a series of payment made to the Greens between 2009 and 2023 amounting to £6.2 million. They claim there was a lack of clarity over the purpose of the payments





Desmond has urged club members to take a stand against the management of Queenwood golf club





The judgment set out the applicants’ complaints about “the club’s management, finances and future governance”, and concerns that the transactions may have been “in part for some form of transfer of control and/or ownership … involving giving the directors control over” the club.

The plaintiffs also claimed that the golf club’s board had “used or threatened to use” the club’s own internal rules to “remove members, apparently for the purpose of trying to silence dissent”.

In the midst of that dispute, the golf club commissioned Deloitte to produce a report on the company’s governance, which found that there had been no “fraud or financial wrongdoing” in the payments made to Green. The report, according to the club, had been commissioned in order to “put all of the allegations and threats behind us”.

This has not satisfied Desmond and his fellow litigants, with the judge in the ruling noting that “they say that without the underlying documents a reader cannot fully understand the report or the explanation given for the various events described in it”. The Sunday Times has contacted the club for comment.

The judgment notes how Desmond’s “allegations are not accepted by the company”. The judge also made it clear that he made no findings about their merits.

It remains to be seen what Desmond, Dennis and Kelsey-Fry are seeking in terms of reliefs, but the judgment noted that one of the primary forms of relief in a case like this “would be a reverse buyout order against Queenwood Development” in favour of shareholders such as Desmond.

Company documents show that the club’s shareholders include Irish business figures such as Desmond, John Magnier and Thomas Colm Kelleher, chairman of UBS and former president of Morgan Stanley. Aidan Heavey, former chief executive of Tullow Oil, is also said to have been a member. Other members include the footballers Jamie Redknapp, Harry Kane, Andriy Shevchenko and Gareth Bale.

Some news reports have claimed that other members include professional golfers such as Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose and Ernie Els.

 

My heart bleeds.

 

People still can't really believe that Desmond has the time and energy to micromanage Celtic?

Golf is his priority in life.

 

Hope he losses and the penalty is castration

 

Tbh doubt he'll be making anymore kids

 

with a 3 iron!

 

My my, I'm sure we could all nitpick that and the parallels to how he runs Celtic.

But I'll just highlight, he's desperate to lain the £6.2m back, but isn't that fussed about how things are run at Celtic where we are wasting multiple millions in over paying for players AND now paying multiple millions just in tax to HMRC!!!

Picks and chooses when money is a waste, eh.

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* him.

 

He needs to go. We need an owner that is actually ambitious and wants to push the club forward on and off the field not hold us back like Desmond and his board cronies.

 

This suggests they guy is in favour of protests. If our fans are protesting, and he is protesting, you'd have to imagine he would listen to the supporters - his biggest investors. Lawell is toast.

 

In one open letter, he urged the club’s other members to make a stand. He said: “If we do not stand united against this Putinesque regime, the integrity and standing of the club will be profoundly and permanently compromised.”


Auld * doesn't get irony does he?

 

He is doing quite a lot of projecting there, isn't he?

 

I think there's every chance he doesn't actually know what's going on at Celtic beyond what the board tell him. Forget the protests, turn up on the ninth hole of whatever course he's on and give him an earful. It's clearly the only thing this man gives a * about.