Sunderland launch £20m legal action against their lawyers in Ricky Alvarez case

Sunderland have launched a £20m court action against a leading law firm in the latest chapter of the legal saga stemming from the signing of flop Ricky Alvarez in 2014. The Black Cats were forced to pay Alvarez's former club Inter Milan £8.8m plus costs, and pay the player almost £5m in wages, following a hearing in front of football's world governing body FIFA.

Separately, Alvarez successfully brought a claim against Sunderland for wrongful termination of his contract, with FIFA's dispute resolution chamber ordering the club to pay £4.2m plus interest. Sunderland appealed against the FIFA ruling in the Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport but their appeal was thrown out, and CAS instead allowed Alvarez's cross-appeal and ordered the club to pay the player £4.77m plus £1.1m in interest.

Sunderland claim that London law firm Mishcon de Reya - who were acting for the club - filed an electronic copy of the appeal on time but missed a deadline to file hard copies of documents with CAS which in turn denied the club the opportunity to overturn the judgements already made and recoup their money, according to a report in the Law Society Gazette. The High Court has now heard that Mishcon de Reya has admitted breach of duty by failing to file a hard copy on time, but denies that the breach caused any loss to the club arguing 'it is inevitable that CAS would have dismissed Sunderland's appeal'.

Richard Salter QC, sitting as a High Court judge, ruled that Sunderland should provide further disclosure but said it was not 'necessary or useful … for there to be the very extensive disclosure which the defendant is seeking', inviting the parties to agree the scope of disclosure. The trial of Sunderland's claim is likely to