After his victory in court, Martin Kind questions Hanover’s board of directors
The dispute between the parent club of Hannover 96 and majority shareholder Martin Kind goes into the next round. After the 78-year-old had successfully defended himself against being dismissed as managing director before the district court, the entrepreneur countered.
MAfter his dismissal by the parent association, majority shareholder Martin Kind may continue to work as managing director of Hannover 96 Management GmbH until the main proceedings. This was decided by the Hanover Regional Court in summary proceedings on Tuesday.
“The procedural controller is allowed to continue to exercise his office,” said judge Carsten Peter Schulze. In concrete terms, this means that the dismissal is not effective until the main proceedings, as long as, for example, the Management GmbH Supervisory Board, which consists of two representatives each from the capital and association side, does not decide on the dismissal. But the conflict is unlikely to be resolved. The parent club is likely to appeal the decision.
The eV surprisingly dismissed Kind, who did not appear in court on Tuesday, as managing director of Hannover 96 Management GmbH at the end of July. The parent association thus chose the maximum escalation level, child defends itself against it legally. Thanks to a decision by the regional court, he was allowed to continue working as managing director until the date of the oral hearing.
Kind welcomed the decision and regretted what he saw as “unnecessary and unconventional action” by the parent club: “The question arises as to whether a board of directors, which has put the club in great danger through its arbitrary actions, the Hannover 96 eV can still represent.”
Richter clarifies the complexity
The judge clarified the complexity of the negotiation: “It is also an exciting question for lawyers how the whole thing ends here and by no means clear,” he also said with regard to further follow-up proceedings. The judgment is a provisional regulation before the main proceedings, for which there is no specific date yet. “It is already a question of whether the dismissal decision is effective or void,” Schulze clarified. A statement of claim has already been received for the main hearing.
While some people around the second division soccer team emphasize the financial merits of the 78-year-old hearing aid entrepreneur Kind for the club, others accuse him of distanced himself from soccer and going it alone. The reasons for the dismissal have so far remained rather nebulous. Rather, individual, smaller proxy conflicts seem to have exhausted the already strained relationship from the point of view of the parent club.
From the point of view of the parent club, the dismissal has become necessary “because the club otherwise faces a serious disadvantage”, the eV recently announced. Kind had “repeatedly and seriously violated instructions and contractual agreements,” it said in a letter to the members last week. The parent association accuses the capital side of the association of repeatedly violating the so-called Hanover 96 Treaty and the sponsorship agreements that were concluded at the same time. A fixed donation was not paid at all and further donations “were not paid at the agreed time”.
Polarizing: in the curve there are mostly opponents of Martin Kind
Source: dpa/Swen gatekeeper
After the allegation of breach of contract against Kind, the club’s professional football division had denied the allegations of the parent club. “We are not experiencing any violation of instructions by Mr. Kind, because the association is actually trampling on the provisions of the articles of association and the Hanover Agreement,” said one of the lawyers on Tuesday. The defense relies on the fact that Kind could only have been dismissed by the Supervisory Board of Management GmbH.
The whole dispute must always be classified in the context of a complicated association structure: Kind is the majority shareholder of Hannover 96 Sales&Service GmbH&Co. KG, which owns 100 percent of professional football KGaA. However, since the 50+1 rule in Germany stipulates that the parent association must always have the majority of votes in an outsourced corporation, the managing directors of the KGaA are appointed by Hannover 96 Management GmbH. It is 100 percent owned by the parent club.
