A company that ran a rival exhibition to the Millennium Dome has failed in its High Court claim that the liquidation of the company behind the Dome was invalid. It had claimed that Lord Falconer, the new Lord Chancellor, was not legally entitled to trigger a members’ voluntary liquidation.
The dispute was seen as a key step in the bid by Greenwich Millennium Exhibition Ltd (GMEL), which had held an exhibition at the Royal Greenwich Naval College, to bring a damages claim against the New Millennium Experience Co Ltd (NMEC), which ran the Dome, alleging that NMEC had conspired to ruin its business.
Collins J, who found against GMEL said that the damages claim it had hoped to bring had been variously estimated at between £35m and £1.6bn.
GMEL claimed that Lord Falconer, who succeeded Peter Mandelson as Dome minister, did not have the jurisdiction to put NMEC into liquidation at the end of 2001 because he was not a shareholder at the time. It challenged a ruling by Lightman J that made a retrospective rectification of Lord Falconer’s status.
Rejecting GMEL’s challenge, Collins J said that it “has not made good its criticism”.
He added that the proceedings, which have come before a number of judges in the Administrative Court, “have taken on the character of an obsessive campaign”.
In the matter of New Millennium Experience Co Ltd between the Greenwich Millennium Exhibition Ltd and Lord Falconer of Thoroton QC and others Queen’s Bench Division: Administrative Court (Collins J) 23 July 2003.
References: PLS News 24/07/03
