Wetherspoon triumphs in court against agent

Tim Martin — founder and chairman of pub chain J D Wetherspoon — was celebrating a victory in the High Court today.

Martin, who started the chain in 1979, had accused the company's former property agent, Van de Berg, of fraud.

The court upheld the claim and said that the agent could have cost Wetherspoon millions of pounds.

The agent was employed to find likely sites for pubs between 1998 and 2006.

It found around 600 such sites but Wetherspoon claimed that in several cases Van de Berg then sold the freehold to a third party and then installed Wetherspoon as a leaseholder at a rent which, in turn, raised the value of the property to the third party.

Wetherspoon will now bring a claim for damages. Its legal costs amount to more than £3 million and experts suggest that each of the 18 pubs involved in the case could be worth at least £1 million more today than they were 10 years ago when Wetherspoon was denied the chance to buy them.