Burridge v MPH Soccer Management Limited [2011] EWCA Civ 835
This case concerned the transfer of Lucas Neill from Blackburn Rovers to West Ham. Mr. Harrison was acting for West Ham. In the agency agreement between the two, a commission of £900,000 was payable to Mr. Harrison in four annual instalments. Both parties were subject to the regulations of the Football Association. The regulations permit only individuals to be agents, but they do recognise that an individual may organise his business through a company. In the declaration of payment section in the agreement, the name of Mr. Harrison's company (MPH) was inserted, along with bank details. In due course Mr & Mrs Burridge obtained a third party debt order against MPH. The issue for decision in the Court of Appeal was whether the payment from West Ham at the time of the debt order was due to Harrison or MPH and, if it was due to Harrison, whether Harrison had assigned it to MPH before the date of the debt order.
The Court of Appeal found that there had been an assignment. The starting point was the FA regulations which bound both West Ham and Harrison. The debt due was assignable by Harrison to MPH without breach of the regulations. The words in the agreement "a fee due to the Agent is to be sent to the Football Association for onward transmission to the Agent at...[MPH]" was a direction to pay MPH. It was given in relation to a debt payable over four instalments over a two and a half year period. There was nothing to suggest that it was revocable. Indeed a mere revocation would involve a breach of the FA regulations. In terms of language, it was quite sufficient to satisfy the test of an assignment in the Dunlop Rubber case. The assignment required consideration, but the Court found that the relationship between Harrison and MPH, including the obligation to keep accounts of receipts of payments, constituted consideration.
This meant that the payment was subject to the third party debt order. The Court did, incidentally, decide that it was perfectly in order for the assignment then to be novated to another Harrison company (which he found had probably happened) but here the debt order was made before that happened.
This case shows it doesn't take much for an equitable assignment to take place.
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