Durban businessman David Stock is taking on the United Cricket Board (UCB) to protect the rights of the small business he has built up over five years at the Kingsmead cricket ground.
In February 1997 Stock signed an agreement with the Natal Cricket Union (NCU) to take over the memorabilia and sports shop at Kingsmead.
The agreement granted Stock’s company “exclusive rights” to market and sell any merchandise within the grounds, except food and drink.
But from early on, one of cricket’s national sponsors, Standard Bank, used merchandising at Kingsmead to promote its brand. Stock repeatedly approached the NCU, later the KwaZulu-Natal Cricket Union (KZNCU), to protect his rights and a number of stop-gap compromises were made.
This March, with the international game against Australia looming in April, Stock’s company applied to the Durban High Court for an urgent interdict to force the KZNCU, the UCB and the bank to respect his rights.
The move came in response to a letter from UCB’s legal advisers asserting that the national body had “prior rights” to sell merchandise at international matches — and annexing an amendment to Stock’s lease reflecting that claim.
In his affidavit, Stock says this betrayed the UCB’s “arrogance”.
The UCB rejected the description. But the board and the bank backed down for the match with Australia and the parties agreed to postpone the main case, now due to be argued on Friday.
The stakes are high. Stock’s company has invested about R1-million in building the business. As Stock points out in his affidavit, the exclusivity provision was crucial to the long-term success of his business.
But the UCB now argues that the KZNCU erred in granting the rights. It claims it had exclusive rights over international cricket and anything connected to it, including the merchandising rights for international one-day games.
It seems, however, that the UCB’s claim to prior rights is based on shifting foundations.
In his first affidavit, Gerald Majola, the UCB’s chief executive, claimed that provincial affiliates had “no authority to deal in any manner with the conduct of international matches or matters relating thereto”.
Majola, supported by his predecessor Ali Bacher, argued that the UCB “takes over” provincial stadiums “by means of tacit hosting agreements” for international matches.
Stock said in his reply that the UCB could point to no document or resolution in which the provincial unions had given up their rights to merchandising, before his contract.
In a bid to remedy its position, the UCB and Standard Bank have now dug up a “draft agreement” on sponsorship dated September 5 1996.
Majola claims that at that time Bacher and the bank had “reached agreement orally” on “all the essential terms” of the sponsorship, which would include the rights to merchandising, before Stock’s contract in 1997.
Majola argues that the draft contract granted Standard Bank all merchandising rights for one-day cricket, despite handwritten notes by Bacher that state: “UCBSA have these rights and should NOT forgo them”, and that Standard Bank’s merchandising rights are protected “only to the extent that SBSA’s insignias are concerned”.
Stock argues in turn that: “The notes by Dr Bacher clearly indicate that agreement still had to be reached on a number of very important issues.”
The Standard Bank contract was only signed in August 1997, long after the conclusion of the sport shop’s contract.