Victory to Harewood
On 17 May 2010, His Honour Judge Langan QC handed down his Judgment in the case between Harewood House Trust and Dine Catering Limited. The Judgment confirms that Dine failed to account to Harewood for monies that were due, confirms that Dine were in repudiatory breach of contract, awards Harewood damages in the region of £30,000 and dismisses Dine’s counterclaim of approximately £1 million in its entirety.In what has been a difficult case, Harewood has been fully vindicated in its decision to remove Dine. David Lascelles, Chairman of Harewood House Trust said: “I’m obviously very pleased to have won our case. As an educational charity we rely on our commercial activities to support our cultural and educational work and I feel badly let down by Dine, both personally and professionally”.
Richard Mansell, Chief Executive, Harewood House Trust said: “Following my appointment in February 2008, I was briefed on relationships with all retained contractors. I was informed of difficulties in 2007 with Dine Catering, all due to adverse ground conditions during one of the wettest summers on record and therefore beyond the control of all parties. My intention was to rebuild the relationship with Dine and I entered into early and initially positive dialogue with the Managing Director, Daniel Gill. I soon realised that the goodwill I had extended was not being reciprocated. It became apparent that commissions due to us under the terms of our agreement were being under-declared and therefore underpaid; in simple terms we were being systematically short-changed. I have not previously been involved in commercial litigation and was reluctant to expose Harewood to such processes without being reasonably confident of our case. In that respect the advice, integrity and professionalism of our legal team from Milners Solicitors, Giles Ward, Dean Hill and Victoria Wells was excellent. I am absolutely delighted with the judgement and believe that justice has been done. More importantly we can now concentrate our efforts and focus on the future in a wholly positive way without having to dwell on unhappy commercial relationships from the past.”
Giles Ward, Managing Partner of Milners Solicitors said: “This has been a challenging case but there was only one clear outcome. Milners have worked hard to ensure that our client achieved their end goal of simply receiving the revenue they were entitled to. We are of course delighted to have successfully represented Harewood in this long running dispute and secured victory in what the Judge described as a saga.”
Following a strategic review of catering, Harewood House Trust has now entered into a joint venture with Boutique Catering to supply top quality catering at Harewood for all occasions and events, in the House, the Courtyard and in the Grounds.
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