Two Companies Announce Exclusive Rights to Same Exclusive Club

Two companies have announced that they hold the exclusive right to expand the same elite private-membership club in the United States, each describing the other's announcement as impossible.

The List Group says its agreement grants it exclusive access to the club's brand, operating methodology and proposed £800 million expansion programme. Founders House says it acquired precisely those rights under an earlier arrangement and that exclusivity, by definition, should not be available to anyone else.

The organisations are now preparing proceedings over what has rapidly become known as the List dispute.

The List Group has instructed Strake Pell, a firm whose clients are rarely named and whose ability to represent the very important is considered evidence that it represents the very important. Founders House has turned to Bracket Legal, a younger firm known for promising to handle matters at a speed that traditional law firms consider inappropriate.

Both sides issued statements within minutes of one another.

The List Group: “Our exclusive rights are unequivocal.”

Founders House: “We entirely agree that exclusive rights are unequivocal. Ours are the unequivocal ones.”

The alleged conflict was discovered when separate investor presentations circulated to several of the same prospective backers. Each contained a slide headed A Once-in-a-Generation Exclusive Opportunity. The two slides differed only in their logos and the implied definition of once.

The value of the proposed US rollout has given the disagreement unusual attention. Advisers say it could develop into a significant cross-border dispute involving corporate authority, intellectual property, technology systems and the increasingly contentious question of whether a club can be exclusive if everybody has been invited to finance it.

The parties do not agree on whether the underlying rights were assigned, licensed, reserved, superseded or misunderstood. They do agree that urgent legal intervention is required and have requested that their respective advisers propose an efficient path to resolution.

Sources close to both teams say this has produced immediate disagreement over who should speak first, how documents should be exchanged and whether the initial meeting is privileged if everyone has advertised it.

A judge has not yet been asked to resolve the dispute. Both legal teams have already opened matter numbers, allocated partners and scheduled a discussion about the benefits of a commercially sensible outcome.

No timetable for that outcome has been provided.