Judgment of the Tribunal on an application by Sports Direct for an injunction mandating Newcastle United FC (“NUFC”) to supply Sports Direct with items of NUFC replica kit.
The Claimant alleged that:
- The Club had abused its dominant position in the market for the wholesale supply of Newcastle United replica kit in the UK, in breach of the prohibition in Chapter II of the Competition Act 1998, by refusing to supply Sports Direct with the Club’s replica kit for the 2024/25 season and granting JD Sports, another UK sports retailer, exclusive rights as a third-party retailer of the Club’s replica kit (alongside only the Club’s and Adidas’s own channels), thereby foreclosing Sports Direct from the downstream retail market and eliminating effective competition on that market; and
- If, and to the extent that the Club contended that the refusal to supply was the necessary result of exclusivity arrangements it had agreed with JD Sports and/ or Adidas, any such agreement was itself in breach of the prohibition in Chapter I of the Competition Act and therefore void, and insofar as the Club implemented any such agreement, it was in breach of the Chapter I prohibition.
For the reasons given in the Judgment, the Tribunal unanimously rejected the application.
