The Tchenguiz brothers’ Rotch Property Group is facing another high court claim over allegedly unpaid consultancy fees.
Marvin Josif of New York and his company Sumar are suing Rotch Property Group for £55,000 and interest in a dispute over fees for consultancy services provided in 2002. Rotch is expected to contest the claim.
It follows a claim 18 months ago in which another US-based property consultant, Curtis Newman, sued Rotch for over £3m in fees relating to the £327.5m sale of Shell-Mex House, Strand, WC2. Rotch declined to comment on these cases, but said: “We would like to stress that three previous cases in the past two years were all settled out of court, two with zero consideration and one with some consideration.”
According to Josif’s claim, for 12 months from February 2001, he spent half his time working for Rotch for £5,000 a month plus VAT. The rest of his time was spent as an employee of IT company Volumebuy UK, also at a salary of £5,000 a month, which was paid out of funds invested in Volumebuy by Rotch.
But in early 2002, the writ alleges, Rotch chairman Vincent Tchenguiz agreed that Josif would provide full-time consultancy services to Rotch for £10,000 a month plus VAT, and end his Volumebuy employment.
Josif claims that Rotch never paid him at this rate and that he received only £15,500 for six months of full-time consultancy, instead of £60,000 plus VAT. He is suing for the £55,000 difference, plus interest. “The services provided would not have been expected by Rotch to have been provided free of charge,” according to the writ.
Josif claims that he was given several drafts of a consultancy contract based on a rate of £10,000 a month plus VAT, and that, although a written contract was never completed, he and his company continued to provide full-time consultancy services to Rotch.
