Updated, 12.34

BRITAIN’S HIGH COURT has granted the Royal Bank of Scotland an injunction which bars Liverpool co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett from changing the membership of the board of directors – paving the way for the sale of the club to New England Sports Ventures.

After deliberating overnight after a long and tense day in Court 16 yesterday, Justice Christopher Floyd ruled that Hicks and Gillett had no power to try and sack members of the board in order to replace them with people who would block the takeover.

He also refused to grant an injunction to Hicks and Gillett to have an interim injunction put on any reconstitution of the board, saying the owners had no right to exercise an absolute veto over the sale. Furthermore, he denied the duo the right to appeal, and ordered them to cover RBS’s legal costs.

The Americans do, however, have the right of seeking a hearing in the court of appeal, an option they are likely to pursue.

The ruling means the decision of the board – as was appointed by the club’s chairman, Martin Broughton – to approve the takeover by New England Sports Ventures, which owns the Boston Red Sox, is free to go ahead.

Breach of contract

Yesterday, solicitors for RBS told the court that Hicks and Gillett were deliberately trying to gerrymander appointments to the club’s board in order to have it block the sale, so that they could profit from the uncertainty over the club’s future.

They had asked Justice Floyd to restore a ‘clearly constituted and functioning board’, saying the matter was urgent as if it had extended beyond Friday, it would have to call in its loans and risk placing the club in administration.

RBS also showed the court a copy of the sale agreement signed by itself and by Hicks and Gillett in April of this year, where Broughton was given the sole power to control appointments or removals from the club’s board of directors.

Broughton is now set to hold a meeting of the reconstituted board at 8pm tonight, at which the NESV takeover will likely be formally ratified. Justice Floyd denied a request by Hicks and Gillett to delay it until tomorrow.

Paul Girolami QC, representing Hicks and Gillett, admitted that his clients had breached Broughton’s contract by overruling his appointments, but said there was no need for the sale to be finalised by Friday because its loans did not expire until November 1.

He had said Hicks and Gillett felt isolated from the sale process, and wanted to know why the board had appeared to dismiss bids from Mill Financial – the investment arm of Washington Redskins co-owner Dwight Schar – and Meriton, the vehicle of Peter Lim who had yesterday increased his offer to buy the club.