Sorry Saga - “It’s actually quite funny people thinking they know more than they actually do”

Here you are Boris_Bomber. Looks like Peter Gordon just wants to represent anyone he can!

Essendon court twist: Bulldogs president Peter Gordon acting for AFL supremos
Michael Warner, Herald Sun
35 minutes ago
Subscriber only
THE Essendon drugs saga has taken another twist with lawyer and Western Bulldogs president Peter Gordon acting for AFL supremos Gillon McLachlan and Mike Fitzpatrick.

It emerged this morning that Gordon’s law firm, Gordon Legal, had been retained by McLachlan and Fitzpatrick as separate legal advisers to the AFL’s in a Supreme Court case alleging misleading and deceptive conduct by the league during footy’s greatest crisis.

Global law firm K & L Gates will continue to lead the AFL’s defence in the case brought by Melbourne lawyer Jackson Taylor.

The involvement of Gordon’s firm will add significant costs to a case that has run since last year.

In an affidavit filed with the court in February, lawyer Mark Dobbie for the AFL estimated the league’s costs in defending the matter would likely top $700,000.

McLachlan last month described the case as a waste of money.

Taylor is being represented by human rights lawyer Julian Burnside, QC, who represented James Hird during his own fight with the AFL.

Taylor’s legal team has also been bolstered, with top commercial lawyer and Adelaide United chairman Greg Griffin signing on as lead solicitor this week.

Peter Gordon (middle) with Gillon McLachlan after the AFLW Grand Final. Picture: Mark Stewart
The legal teams fronted Supreme Court Justice John Dixon at a directions hearing this morning to set out the next procedural steps in the case.

An argument over a deed of release between the parties signed in 2015 will be heard later this year.

McLachlan and Fitzpatrick were represented in court today by commercial barrister Georgina Costello.

Gordon is also acting for the AFL in a sexual harassment and racial discrimination case brought against the league by ex-Gold Coast Suns player Joel Wilkinson.

The Dogs president was embroiled in his own bitter stoush with the AFL in 2016 over the league’s handling of an investigation into the club’s elimination final narrow loss to the Adelaide Crows.

Bulldogs chiefs informed the AFL they had obtained “independent corroboration” of allegations that disaffected Dogs defender Michael Talia leaked parts of the team’s game plan to his brother, star Adelaide backman Daniel Talia, in the days before the match.

The Talias, who have always maintained their innocence, were cleared by the AFL after a 63-day integrity unit investigation.

“There is a clearly sufficient basis for the AFL to find that there was an improper communication of confidential information,” Gordon asserted in the club’s damning submission to the league.

Gordon also issued a statement on behalf of 17 club presidents as the AFL’s war against Essendon reached fever pitch in August 2013.

“We resolved to unanimously express our support for the integrity of the AFL Rules and the need for those rules and the integrity of our competition to be preserved,” he said.

“In our view, it is of paramount importance that every effort be made to resolve these matters within the AFL industry.”

Ummm!

How did the Dogs lose an elimination final to the Crows in 2016 when they won the premiership that year?

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Exactly.

“Communication specialists” and “the continuing death of journalism”.

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Herald Sun have a date for the trial. Those with access?

Was meant to be week before GF!

Ahahah.

AFL’s worst nightmare given the public interest at that time of year.

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how can the president of an afl club be a legal adviser to the head of the league said club operates in? conflict of interest much? fmd this league is joke.

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LOL, they focus on Talia and not on (I believe still) player welfare staff member Prismall.

Wonder what he thinks of his boss’s approach to his welfare.

Essendon doping scandal court hearing could have been heard week before AFL Grand Final

PADRAIC MURPHY and MICHAEL WARNER, Herald Sun
34 minutes ago

THE HEARING of the long-running Essendon doping scandal was almost scheduled the week before the AFL Grand Final.

Lawyer Jackson Taylor is suing AFL boss Gillon McLachlan over the Essendon scandal, alleging McLachlan and chairman Mike Fitzpatrick contravened consumer law by misleading or deceiving the public over the AFL’s conduct in the saga, to protect its commercial interests and reputation.

Justice John Dixon proposed setting a hearing involving AFL boss Gillon McLachlan in the week before the Grand Final, but agreed to push it back after the league’s barrister Gregory Harris QC said the date “was less than ideal”.

Justice Dixon agreed.

“It might be easier for everybody if it is dealt with in the first or second week of October,” Justice Dixon said.

Mr Taylor’s case centres on a series of public comments, including:

— McLACHLAN’S denials that he asked the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority to “take bits out” of an interim report unfavourable to the AFL.

— McLACHLAN’S denials that he tried to engineer outcomes before Essendon players and officials were interviewed by ASADA and the AFL.

— FITZPATRICK’S denial that he told axed Essendon football boss Danny Corcoran in March 2016 that “your mate (James) Hird will never get back into football”.

The matter must proceed through a number of preliminary steps involving funding — the AFL believes the case will costs as much as $700,000 — and legal argument before it proceeds to a public hearing in the weeks after the Grand Final.

If it proceeds, it will could mean Mr McLachlan, former boss Andrew Demetriou and retired AFL commission chairman Mike Fitzpatrick are quizzed under oath over their handling of football’s biggest scandal.

The AFL is expected to argue before the hearing that a deed of release signed Mr Taylor in an earlier proceeding may prevent the current case.

In June, Justice Dixon said that the questions of whether the AFL was acting in its commercial interests by making statements about the Essendon supplements saga needed to go to trial.

“I accept, as the plaintiff submitted, that the court must determine whether the statements were made in an attempt by the AFL to protect its commercial operations,” he wrote in his judgment.

“The AFL’s business, in large part, depends upon the way it is viewed by the public, because its income is derived from television revenues, membership and ticket sales.

“Controlling the clubs and the competition so that the public have faith in the integrity of the competition may be a necessary part of that activity.” The AFL previously said that Mr Taylor had not been affected by the Essendon matter and that he had only including McLachlan and Fitzpatrick as defendants “to stain their reputations.”

The case returns to court next month.

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Could this fat ■■■■ be anymore of an AFL toady???
Throw another pie down your throat, blubberboy…

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is there even the slightest of possibilities that the AFL decides not to be an incestuous disgusting slob of an organisation for once and you know, get someone independent to fkg represent them?

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Makes the perfect and obvious choice when you think about it.

He was heavily involved in the initial stitch up corruption, so no problems with disclosing “the bits we don’t need” to anyone outside the incestuous circle.

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…and the cheek of the AFL to charge Essendon on governance issues. They have no idea of the term! To appoint a club president in in its defence panel - company directors have been charged over less conflict of interest scenarios than this!

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The real question is whether Gordon Legal will be solvent by the time this goes to trial.

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Gordon would know where the bodies are buried. Can he be called as a witness while acting for the AFL?

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Why would the date of the trial worry the AFL when, according to them, it’s a trivial waste of time that doesn’t concern them?

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Can he even do that? isn’t it a conflict of interest?

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That would be huhlarious.

I would think not. I would further think that this may be the real reason that the AFL has hired him despite the obvious conflict of interest - exactly to prevent him being a witness. (Was this in fact what you were implying, ba?).

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Pretty amusing the bleating over reputations by AFL honchos when large part of JT case about how they bullied Hird whose reputation was irrepairably damaged.

Gordon can GAGF.

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I’m no fan of Gordon, but I fail to see the conflict of interest.

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