Industrials tycoon Sanjeev Gupta is locked in a legal battle with Patrizia, the landlord of his London headquarters, over unpaid rent and service charges.
The German property developer has launched a lawsuit against Liberty Commodities Ltd, the metals trading arm of Gupta’s steel empire, to hold it to a 10-year contract for the second floor of 40 Grosvenor Place, SW1.
In a court filing, Patrizia, via its subsidiary NPS (40GP) Ltd, alleged Liberty owed £4m in unpaid rent, service charges and other fees. Liberty signed a 10-year lease in 2019 for the offices at a rent of £3.1m a year.
Patrizia wants the High Court to rule that the lease remains valid and is seeking payment of arrears and costs from Liberty.
In a defence filed last month, Liberty said it had discussed giving up the lease last February because it no longer needed it. It said Patrizia forfeited the lease by making a “peaceable re-entry” last April when it installed a new security system. Liberty accepted it was in arrears but disputed the amount owed.
