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THE TENANT OF Bewley’s Café premises on Dublin’s Grafton Street will continue to pay €1.5 million in rent after the Supreme Court upheld an appeal against a decision that mandated a reduction.
The landlord, Johnny Ronan-controlled Ickandel Limited, had appealed a judgment secured by Bewley’s in the High Court last year against the upward-only nature of the rental contract agreed 35 years ago.
The last rental agreement was struck on January 1 2007, at the height of the property bubble, when rental costs on Dublin’s main shopping streets were among the highest in the world.
The appeal followed a decision by Mr. Justice Charleton in the High Court last year which stipulated that the rent must come down.
The case was appealed to the Supreme Court by Ickandel, which had its loans transferred into Nama when the economy collapsed.
Original judgment
Delivering his original judgment, Justice Charleton said that from the time of signing the contract “there had been marked deflation in the rental and housing purchase sector”, and that “the last rent was at the height of the property price inflation that undermined the Irish economy”.
He found that the parties had agreed never to fall below the initially agreed rent, but not “for anything other than a fair and open market rent”.
Reaction
Bewleys say they are “immensely disappointed with the judgment” and will consider it with legal advice.
Group CEO John Cahill said:
“The landlord has managed to achieve an oppressive rent of €1.5million that was set in 2007, at the height of the unsustainable property bubble and is double the market rate at 1 January 2012.”
He continued:
All we have sought is an acknowledgement of economic reality and fair treatment with a rent that reflects market values, but this has been blocked by Nama and the landlord.
Retail Excellence Ireland said that today’s decision is bad for jobs and investment in the domestic economy.
Chief executive David Fitzsimons said: “This decision will simply undermine a potential return to stability in the domestic economy and will lead to the loss of vulnerable jobs in the Irish retail industry.”
The decision of the Supreme Court to apply the terms of this onerous lease proves how out of kilter legacy commercial leases are with a turbulent domestic economy.
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‘Nation is a thorn in Company’s side’. That is a scary headline when you think of it.
When will Facebook get their own Private Military Force I wonder?
I’d imagine they’ve intelligence gathering capabilities to put most governments to shame.
And we happily give it that information out.
Imagine if “the government” told us it was now the law that we had to give all that personal data, and carry it around on a tracking device.
We would have all the lefties AND righties screaming blue murder.
Bill you can leave Facebook any time you’d like and that’s the end of their ability to track you, I’m not sure Government enforced tracking is even remotely similar.
Not true, you don’t have to use Facebook to be tracked by it.
All the bleaters who give out about the state and big brother watching you…all overlooking Facebook, Google Apple etcetc
Are you ok Huns?
Pm’d you there hun xoxoxo
Like if you cried
Wasn’t Merkel snuggling up to Facebook in an attempt to control what Germans were saying about her folly In inviting the Middle East , North Africa and Asia to come live in Europe , I wonder did they do what they were told ?
At the same time German exports are on a massive high, unlike us, the French and the rest of EU. Go figure.
It’s possible to be over reliant on exports though. Leaves you very exposed if the world economy takes a dump. It’s a very fine balance.
Facebook is a free service from the user perspective that allows you to do a great deal. If it didn’t exist you’d have to invent it. If you want to use a free service then you have to expect a quid pro quo. What is required is that companies such as Facebook are clear about the quid pro who.
There is a huge capacity to tweak your privacy settings on Facebook if you can be bothered to do so. The problem is that many users are not bothered.
The Germans have never been happy with companies like Facebook and Google who use their users’ data to provide what is essentially a commercial service. Apple do not use their user’s data to provide their services. They don’t need to. Their commercial model is different. Horses for courses.
The competition angle is highly contrived. What the Germans resent is that under EU law they are not in exclusive control of Facebook’s activities on their territory. They bitterly resent the notion that a little country like Ireland has such control because the EU HQ of Facebook is here. Strangely enough they have no problem with other aspects of EU law which have opened up internal EU markets to their industries. Like most large States the Germans are hypocrites.
It is easy to criticise Facebook but they have come a long way as has Google in terms of transparency of data use. Continued oversight is needed. But people have to take the time to protect their privacy on-line. Many do not.
Here’s the thing. Don’t like like how Facebook operates… Dont use it. Simple Don’t use a free service voluntarily and then complain about it
“…und das ist all you’ll ever be..”
Facebook’s problem is has to take a side in this freedom of speech debate, look at Twitter who have done the same thing. Twitters user based has dropped along with its share price since it started attacking freedom of speech of some of its users. Any social network platform that takes the wrong side will find to its cost it was an awful business decision.
Agree John.
Germans have bad experience of being spied on the East German Stassi for instance
http://www.mtv.com/news/2723688/germany-twitter-facebook-google-deal-hate-speech-refugees-migrants-muslims/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-faces-antitrust-investigation-in-germany-1456920796
there is huge pressure put on the likes of FB, Google etc by outside international political bodies like the UN Migration dept, EU commision etc. to censor all anti migrant speech and collect data on every one. From the stazi era i germany the average middle aged german is rightly concerned by the incremental erosion of their privacy and the censorship of things disliked by those at the top.
What is happening there now is a semi grassroots reaction to this led by worried german civil servants and concerned politicians. Merkel is all on board with the soviet era top down east german control.
have your say