The UK chief executive of Inchcape has been branded as dishonest by a High Court judge in a row over a planned dealership.
James Brearley, who has run the British division of the international car dealer and services company since 2017, along with property developer Rodger Danks, had claimed that negligent advice from law firm Higgs & Sons had led to the loss of a planned Jaguar Land Rover dealership in Wolverhampton.
But Mrs Justice Sarah Falk has said that Brearley appeared to be “prepared to tell untruths, and certainly to be careless with the truth and to withhold information, where he perceives it to be in his interests to do so”.
A breach of duty related to inadequate advice was established, but the case failed because the claimants did not establish “what Brearley would have done if he had received competent advice” or that there was a substantial chance of pursuing the plan.
