Newcastle United subsequently launched two separate legal actions against the Premier League in an attempt to push through the takeover. Firstly, on 14 September 2020 Blackstone Chambers announced that they had appointed Nick De Marco QC and Shaheed Fatima QC to represent Newcastle United in the club's legal arbitration action against the Premier League’s determination that the Saudi Arabian government and PIF were not separate entities. The legal arbitration hearing was scheduled to take place in July 2021. An additional claim was filed with the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) on 22 April 2021, where St James Holdings – the holding company of Newcastle United – asserted that the Premier League had acted anti-competitively and “prevented, or hindered, the proposed takeover and knew that its actions would prevent and/or delay the proposed takeover”. The Competition Appeal Tribunal would later, on 27 July 2021, list the jurisdiction hearing for the case to take place on 29 September 2021, after the Premier League applied to have the case thrown out.
