The deal is believed to be worth $48 million and Laidlaw said NZR was left with no choice but to proceed with legal action.
“I hope that sanity prevails and that Ineos does honour its contract, at least for the rest of the term, and otherwise it deserves to suffer. If somebody breaches a contract in what appears to be a very high-handed manner, then they deserve to be hammered.”
He acknowledged that while sponsorship was a risky business, due diligence must still be carried out.
“Nobody ever knows what goes on in the background in these kind of deals, and I see that they have run into trouble with other organisations as well. But a deal is a deal.”
Laidlaw hoped NZ Rugby may be in a position to be more socially conscious about future sponsorships.
“In principle, of course they should, but it’s a pretty narrow field. I think when it comes to large-scale sports sponsorship. There aren’t many people out there who are prepared to do a deal with sports. But if you can avoid a large-scale petrochemical company, then certainly the advice would be yes, but we all know that New Zealand is really desperately short of income.”
Former NZR chief executive David Moffett said ultimately should they be unable to settle out of court, the only winners were going to be lawyers.
“There will be damage to both brands. They should try and settle it, but if not I hope from New Zealand Rugby’s perspective, they have had really fantastic advice, which says that they’ve got a winnable case because otherwise it will be expensive.”
Moffett questioned where Silver Lake – a NZ Rugby equity partner – has been during the battle with Ineos.
“They came in and promised a whole lot of things and I don’t know what they’ve actually achieved, and now when the going gets tough, where are they? It would be interesting to know the role that Silver Lake has played in trying to get this resolved.”
Moffett said during his time at the helm, he was faced with a similar sponsorship issue, though it would not reach the levels of the soured Ineos deal.
“The only instance we had was when we did the Adidas deal, and some players had contracts with Mizuno to wear their boots. So we had to do a deal with their managers to buy them out of that because obviously the Adidas deal involved the entire kit, which included boots, so, it’s not unheard of, but the public wouldn’t have even known about it. For New Zealand Rugby to make it public, it’s obviously a very serious situation.”
He said modern-day sponsorship deals can be a minefield.
“You don’t take on an organisation like Ineos and the billionaire owner without having a really good strong court case. So I hope they have got one of those.”
Wellington Rugby Board chairman Russell Poole said they were given the heads-up about the pending legal action.
“I feel for them. Obviously it’s a big deal, a big partner and they would’ve been working hard to try and avoid the situation, it’s something no one would’ve wanted.”
But Poole said their understanding was that there would be no financial impact to the provinces as a result.
“Long may that continue.”
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