Only days after the final of the latest Fame Academy competition, the show’s producer has become embroiled in a legal dispute over the house used for the BBC talent show.
Producer Endemol UK plc, the team behind hit shows such as Big Brother, Changing Rooms and Ground Force, is facing a damages claim from a construction firm that says that it wrongly pulled out of an agreement to use a Grade II listed building in Hatfield as the venue for Fame Academy. Instead, the producer used Witanhurst House in Highgate to house the contestants in the past two series of the BBC show, as well as for Celebrity Fame Academy.
McNicholas Construction (Holdings) Ltd, part-owner of Essendon Place, Essendon, Hatfield, is asking Deputy Judge Anthony Mann QC to rule that Endemol breached its contract to use McNicholas’s property, costing the firm £217,375 in lost rent for the first series, which ran last year.
The judge is being asked to rule on whether an oral contract existed between McNicholas and Endemol for the use of the property, which McNicholas says was made in July 2002 and is allegedly evidenced in writing by a draft that was faxed to Endemol.
Endemol maintains that no binding contract or agreement had been made between the parties, and that it was the intention of both parties that a binding agreement would occur only upon both parties signing a written contract.
The hearing continues.
McNicholas Construction (Holdings) Ltd v Endemol UK Plc Queen’s Bench Division (Deputy Judge Anthony Mann QC) 7 October 2003.
References: EGi Legal News 8/10/03
