RANGERS shareholder Sandy Easdale believes he has been exonerated after an investigation into his time as chairman of Rangers' operating company was dropped.
The club has said the probe would not be proceeding against Mr Easdale who decided to resign from all his club directorships.
It is understood Mr Easdale will not be immediate plans to give up his vital 20% of the voting rights at Rangers. That together with the shares of Newcastle owner Mike Ashley gives them power of veto over crucial financial decisions facing Rangers.
The development came the day after the club said Easdale, chief executive Derek Llambias and financial director Barry Leach had all been suspended from their duties pending the investigation and a resolution that aims to remove them as directors.
Former chief executive Llambias and finance director Leach exited The Rangers Football Club plc board as directors after a landslide victory by Dave King and his allies at an extraordinary general meeting on Friday.
Dave King managed to obtain around 85 per cent of the vote to support his Ibrox revolution at the club's EGM which saw Paul Murray, Douglas Park, John Gilligan appointed to the plc board.
Jack Irvine, adviser to the Easdale family said: "They couldn't suspend him as this is contrary to the Companies Act and the club's Articles of Association as I said. Ergo, Mr Easdale wanted this inaccurate nonsense cleared up.
"He resented the suggestion of an 'investigation' when there was nothing to investigate and the club have now conceded this in their statement.
"Sandy simply wanted matters to be handled in a proper and legally sound manner and after a lot of hard work by his legal advisers this has now been achieved.
"Perhaps if Mr Gilligan was familiar with company law and his club's own articles this could all have been avoided. If he didn't ken before he'll ken noo! "
Rangers said that matters with Mr Easdale were resolved on an "amicable basis".
The club said: "Mr Easdale has agreed to resign from his directorships with the group with immediate effect and he does so wishing the club, its supporters and the new board every success for the future.
"The club thanks Mr Easdale for his co-operation in this changeover and confirms the investigation previously referred to will not now proceed. The club is also happy to confirm that Mr Easdale did not receive any remuneration in respect of the directorships he held with the club."
It is understood the investigation that led to the suspensions were to examine financial management in recent months including how a loan by Mike Ashley was favoured over King's £16 million takeover bid.
The Three Bears group of Park, George Letham and George Taylor also had a £6.5m loan offer rejected in favour of two tranches of £5m that were made available to Rangers' through Ashley's Sports Direct group.
As part of the loan agreement, Ashley's Sports Direct became the "ultimate controlling party" of Rangers Retail instead of the club plc and gained security over many of the club's precious trademarks.
Sports Direct also has security over Murray Park training ground, Edmiston House and Albion Car Park as a result of the loan.
The deal also gave Sports Direct the right to two representatives on the the board of the holding company Rangers International Football club plc. Llambias, a trusted lieutenant and Barry Leach, the chief executive of IBML, Sports Direct's licensing division has been seen as Ashley representatives until they were removed.
Phoenix Suns basketball team owner Robert Sarver also had a £20 million takeover offer turned down in January.
Fans have previously raised concerns that Mr Easdale, who owns McGill's bus company, previously had influence over 26 per cent of the shareholding and the voting rights at Ibrox. This was reduced before the EGM to around 20%. It is understood he abstained during the EGM.
Sandy Easdale, who is chairman of the operating company, had remained in position after his brother and business partner James resigned the plc board and all subsidiaries nearly two weeks ago.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article