Qatari Diar lawyers hit back in Chelsea Barracks confrontation

Lawyers acting for Qatari Diar Real Estate (QD) in its dispute with Christian Candy’s CPC Group over the Chelsea Barracks scheme have hit back at the “absurd” claim that, they say, “lacks credibility”. Opening the case for QD this afternoon at the High Court trial of CPC’s £81m compensation claim, Joe Smouha QC said the claim was “absurd” and “it was simply not the case that CPC was almost certain to be paid the £81m”. He said that the share purchase agreement, under which CPC had previously sold its interest in the scheme to QD, was “uncertain both as to the amount and the timing”, and it was not the case that the money was “banked in advance but CPC, as an act of generosity had said that it would wait a while before recovery”. Smouha asked the judge, Sir Geoffrey Vos QC, to conclude that CPC’s case shows what it thought the deal was about. He said: “They would have seen withdrawal as a good thing – they would use withdrawal as a way of banking an amount they thought quite wrongly was already decided.” The dispute centres on the decision by QD, in June 2009, to withdraw the parties’ joint planning application for a £3bn Lord Rogers-designed luxury residential redevelopment of the 12.5-acre former Ministry of Defence site in London SW3. CPC claims that QD had withdrawn the plans and annulled the contract after London mayor Boris Johnson said that he would use planning powers to veto the proposals. According to CPC, that was a “manufactured device” and “smokescreen” designed to enable QD to avoid making a substantial compensation payment to CPC. Rejecting that allegation, Smouha said that the scenario was covered by the agreement that was a “carefully delineated matrix of potential scenarios in which both parties would think it in their interests for there to be a withdrawal”. He said that the mayor had clearly indicated that if Westminster Council granted approval, he would direct refusal and that a claim that QD was “scrabbling” for a justification for its withdrawal “lacks credibility”. CPC alleges that the proposals were instead unilaterally and wrongfully withdrawn by QD despite its objections after the intervention of Prince Charles, who preferred an alternative design by architect Quinlan Terry. The case continues.