The spectre of Mike Ashley continued to haunt Rangers in the early part of the season. Ashley lost a legal challenge to the SFA's fine over breaching dual ownership rules with reports he faced a £250,000 legal bill. In October, he was ordered to pay half of the SFA's legal costs and an additional fee for the costs incurred from receiving specialist legal advice. Moreover, further failed legal action meant Ashley was required to pay the legal costs of the SFA and Dave King following a failed bid to overturn the decision that King was a "fit and proper" person from April 2016. Despite standing down from the board of Rangers Retail in June 2016, the club's joint merchandising venture with Sports Direct, Ashley refused to relinquish his grip over Rangers retail operations. After reaching an impasse in its attempts to renegotiation the retail agreements with Sports Direct, a stand off ensued between the retailer and Rangers with the latter withdrew removing rights to use the club's intellectual property which would impact on the sale of Rangers new Puma football kits. Despite the club withdrawing permission to use its trademarks, which effectively halted the sale of kits, Puma released the 2016-17 kits at the beginning of August. This led to the board to consider replacing the Puma kits with an alternative. The contract with Rangers Retail reportedly earned the club only four pence from every pound spent on merchandise and was highlighted as a reason for Rangers weak financial performance. On Halloween 2016 it emerged that Ashley lodged a counter-suit against Rangers, King and director Paul Murray, with initial proceedings regarding the case being heard at the High Court of Justice in March 2017.