A dispute over the rent review of light industrial premises in Derby has moved to the Court of Appeal.
Landlord Warborough Investments Ltd is challenging a November 2002 High Court decision in which Collins J backed an arbitrator’s award of £27,900 pa in respect of 29 terraced nursery units, located on the north side of Shaftesbury Street and on Osmaston Road, Derby.
In the Court of Appeal, Warborough claimed that the judge had misconstrued the parties’ written submissions to the arbitrator, and had wrongly applied the test for substantial injustice to the facts of the case.
Nicholas Dowding QC, counsel for Warborough, said that the award was based principally upon three settlements, reached in 1997, relating to nos 248, 246 and 244 Osmaston Road, which relied upon settlements for the same properties reached in 1989.
He argued that the arbitrator’s use of the 1989 settlements to adjust those of 1997 was a “serious irregularity that had caused substantial injustice to Warborough within the meaning of section 68 of the Arbitration Act 1996”.
Rosemary Jackson, counsel for the lessee, argued that the judge had rightly held that the “comparables and the formula adopted by the arbitrator had been put into the arena by the lessee, and that Warborough must be taken to have deliberately avoided tackling them”.
The hearing continues.
Warborough Investments Ltd v S Robinson & Sons (Holdings) Ltd Court of Appeal (Clarke and Jonathan Parker LJJ) 14 May 2003.
References: PLS News 14/5/03
