The High Court has ordered billionaire Simon Halabi to pay architect’s fees for his proposed £300m luxury hotel development of the former home of the In & Out Club in Piccadilly, London W1 and
Coulson J allowed architect Fitzroy Robinson’s (now known as Aukett Fitzroy Robinson) claim that it is entitled to fees from the mothballed project. However, he held that it had made fraudulent misrepresentations concerning the departure from the firm of star architect Jeremy Blake, who was to be responsible for the scheme.
Since 2006, Halabi, a Syrian-born property entrepreneur, has been working on plans to convert the former club and surrounding buildings into one of the world’s most glamorous venues.
However, the court heard that the site has been subject to planning delays and the development has been on hold since December 2007.
The club was to be a partner for
However, in April 2008, Mentmore Towers Ltd, also owned by the Halabi family trusts, became involved in a legal dispute with Fitzroy Robinson over allegedly unpaid fees of £504,416 plus VAT in connection with the Buckinghamshire development.
One month later, two Jersey-based vehicles owned by Halabi family trusts – Good Start Ltd and Anglo Swiss Holdings Ltd– were also sued for fees amounting to approximately £1m plus VAT in respect of the Piccadilly project.
The Halabi family trust companies counter-claimed, alleging fraudulent misrepresentation over Blake’s departure from Fitzroy.
They alleged that in March 2006, almost at the outset of Fitzroy’s work and before the contracts had been finalised, Blake had resigned, but Fitzroy had failed to tell Halabi or the companies until November. It had therefore failed to correct the false representation that Blake would remain throughout the project.
The companies also alleged that Fitzroy’s professional negligence of had delayed the planning application and project as a whole.
Ruling on the fee dispute, Coulson J held that the fees payable to Fitzroy would have to be adjusted in order to reflect the delays to the programme and the services actually performed.
Coulson J went on to rule that although Fitzroy had fraudulently misrepresented Blake’s departure, the claim arising from the misrepresentation would be “quite modest” because it would be limited to the disruption and duplication arising from his departure.
The judge dismissed the professional negligence counter-claim.
If the parties fail to agree on the fee entitlement based on the judgment, a hearing to determine quantification will be held towards the end of the year.
In a statement yesterday, Fitzroy said: “We are very pleased that the judge has entirely dismissed the counter-claim of professional negligence and that he found that we should receive payment for the services performed.
“He did, however, find that communication of the resignation of a senior member of the project team should not have been delayed and therefore found against the company in respect of this element of the counter-claims.
“The judge also criticised the witness statement and representations made by Nicholas Thompson, chief executive officer of the company, in support of our claim.”
Fitzroy Robinson Ltd v Mentmore Towers Ltd; Fitzroy Robinson Ltd v Good Start Ltd and another Technology and
Peter Fraser QC and Zulfikar Khayum (instructed by Laytons, of Guildford) appeared for the claimant; Paul
