OFT's 11th-hour intervention in Crehan tied lease pub row

The Office of Fair Trading has made an 11th-hour bid to intervene in the long-running legal row between ex-Inntrepreneur licensee Bernard Crehan and Japanese bank Nomura.

Less than two weeks before the House of Lords is due to hear the bank's appeal against £250,000 damages costs awarded to Crehan, the OFT has applied to give evidence to Law Lords.

It says it wants to comment on points of principle relating to competition law and policy following the Court of Appeal's ruling two years ago that the beer purchasing tie written into Crehan's contract breached European competition law.

Crehan has argued through the courts for the past 14 years that the terms of the tied lease led to the business failure of his two pubs, the Cock Inn and the Phoenix at Staines, Middlesex.

Crehan's lawyer Rupert Croft, of Maitland Walker solicitors, said he was objecting to the OFT bid. Representatives of other litigants waiting to start proceedings against Inntrepreneur owner Nomura expressed surprise at the OFT decision.

"The OFT has had two years to comment on the competition issue in this case but now they arrive on the scene within two weeks of it being heard," ​said trade consultant Alan Temple, representing 100 claimants.

The Lords were expected to decide on the OFT application this week and the result will be posted on this website.

Your Comments​Alan Temple​ via email 30/05/2006"If there has ever been a time when all the those thar beleive in justice should stand up and be counted it is now, Bernard Crehen has endured every obstacle the system could put before him in his search for justice. Over the last fourteen years I and countless other have made representations to both the OFT and the DTI, I have read, and still have copies of the replies to letters written by desperate publicans to Prime Ministers, Ministers and MP's, the writers all facing ruin, in the form of bankruptcy, loss of their homes, their savings and in mores cases than I care to recall their marriages and their dignity.

In every case the reply to those cries for help was the same "this is a matter for the courts to decide" in particular I recall it being explained to me by an official of the DTI that as soon as the courts made a ruling then the DTI would enforce it.

So why now are the OFT and DTI and VISA trying to influence the Courts.

I think I know the answer, do you?

A Newnes​ via email 30/05/2006"What a sham, at the very last minute the OFT decides it has an important issue that must be put forward, where have they been for the last 2 years,and 10 years before that, maybe the brewers and pub co's are sweating, could this them wondering what may happen to the tie."

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