Crehan on Brink of £1m payout
By Andrew Pring Former Inntrepreneur licensee Bernard Crehan could be set for £1.3m in damages after the judge hearing his case decided the beer tie caused his business to fail. The money will be payable if Crehan's lawyers can convince the Court of Appeal that the High Court judge was wrong in deciding the Inntrepreneur beer tie did not breach European competition law. And the result in this test case left both side's lawyers scratching their heads in surprise. For Mr Justice Park stunned the court by delivering what many consider a rogue judgment that has overturned conventional legal wisdom and stopped Crehan becoming a millionaire overnight. Instead of being steered in his judgment by years of beer market investigations carried out by the European Commission, Park was swayed by economists called by Inntrepreneur. They argued with backing by Carlsberg Tetley chairman Ebbe Dinesen that far from the UK beer market being a closed shop in the early 1990s (which has been the view to date) there was, in fact, plenty of opportunity for free market competition. They pointed to the fact that 11,000 pubs were available for sale at the time, and that both Anheuser-Busch and Carlsberg established themselves in the UK market then. That lead the judge to conclude that Inntrepreneur's network of beer ties did not breach European Competition laws, which conflicts with the 1999 European Commis-sion decision regarding brewers Whitbread, Bass and Scottish & Newcastle, who were nevertheless able to gain special exemptions. For Crehan and wife Dolores now to win the payday they have been dreaming of since going bust 10 years ago which would pave the way for perhaps more than 100 similar cases against Inntrepreneur the British Court of Appeal must decide that Mr Justice Park's knowledge of beer market economics was not as good as the European Commission's. Lawyers acting for Crehan believe they can now scent victory. Said Rupert Croft, at Charles Russell: "The judge's view on barriers to entry into the UK beer market conflicts with various European Commission decisions." Observers note that it is highly unusual for a British judge to find against the European Court in this way. It would seem likely, therefore, that the UK Court of Appeal (possibly in January 2004), will overturn this part of the judgment and trigger the payment to Crehan. However, if the case does go to appeal and Charles Russell will be seeking legal aid for that this week Inntrepreneur may be able to block the payout by arguing against the judge's other findings. They will particularly seek to quash the amount of damages, having argued that any losses should be restricted just to the two years, between 1991 and 1993, when Crehan was running the Cock Inn and the Phoenix. Mr Justice Park, however considered it appropriate to include all Crehan's subsequent losses, as well as the capital value of the lease.
