By Ciaran Vale
The High Court has ordered Elite Gastrobars Limited to pay €276,041.44 in rent and other charges owed for Restaurant Unit 3 at Liffey Valley Shopping Centre.
The shopping centre owner, BVK Elektra 2 Liffey Phase 1 ICAV, sought summary judgment for rent, service charges, insurance contributions and a licence fee which it said had remained unpaid from the period after it became registered owner in August 2020.
Elite Gastrobars accepted that it had fallen into arrears during the Covid-19 pandemic, when public health restrictions disrupted its business. It disputed the landlord's entitlement to immediate judgment on several grounds.
The tenant argued that figures in the landlord's accounts were unclear. Mr Justice Barry O'Donnell found, however, that explanations provided in affidavits adequately accounted for the entries and that the tenant had not identified a concrete error or supplied its own alternative calculation.
Elite Gastrobars also questioned when the plaintiff became entitled to recover the arrears. The judge held that the land registry folio showed the plaintiff became registered freehold owner in August 2020 and that the sums claimed arose after that date. He also noted that the tenant later participated with the plaintiff in a rent review under the lease.
The principal dispute concerned the lease's insurance and rent-suspension provisions. Elite Gastrobars argued that the landlord should have insured against Covid-related business interruption and that rent could cease where access to the premises was prevented.
The court rejected both interpretations. It found that the defined insured risks concerned events such as fire, flooding and other causes of physical damage, not public health restrictions. The rent-suspension clause likewise applied where physical damage or an insured risk prevented access, rather than where regulations restricted trading.
The judge held that these contractual issues were sufficiently clear to decide without a full trial. Summary judgment was granted for €276,041.44, with costs and interest left for later determination.