The High Court has refused Oysters Shuckers Limited’s application for an interlocutory injunction that would have prevented its landlord from retaking the Temple Bar premises where it operates the Klaw restaurant. The court found a fair question for trial about whether a 15-year lease said to have been signed in 2018 was binding, but concluded that the balance of justice did not support the injunction.
The dispute centres on a lease which the company says was executed on 19 November 2018 by the landlord, Architecture Manufacture Support (EU) Limited, through its director Wooi Heong Tan. The company says the lease ran for 15 years from 1 October 2018, at annual rent of €40,000. It also says the lease formed part of an agreement connected to Mr Tan’s departure from the company and related businesses. The defendants deny that a new lease was agreed. Mr Tan said he signed a copy to hold while he considered whether to grant one, and later decided not to proceed.
The company sought the injunction after the landlord’s solicitors said the landlord intended to take possession and secure the premises in June 2020. The court had granted an interim order on 5 June, while Covid-19 emergency legislation prohibiting evictions was in force. At this later hearing, the parties agreed that the emergency period had ended and the application should be considered under the usual principles for interlocutory injunctions.
Justice Mark Sanfey said the competing accounts of the 2018 meeting could not be resolved at this stage. The affidavit evidence raised a fair question about whether the disputed lease bound the landlord; that issue remained for trial. The judgment did not decide whether the lease was valid.
The judge weighed the company’s failure to pay the rent it said was due under the disputed lease, and its failure to pay any rent after March 2020. The company proposed paying €15,000 into escrow for the claimed rent difference and €2,000 a month into escrow pending trial. The judge found no basis for suspending rent because the restaurant could not trade during the pandemic: the lease’s rent-suspension clause concerned premises that were damaged or unfit for use, which he found did not describe the situation argued by the company. He also rejected the proposed application of frustration or an implied lease term to suspend rent.
The judge said the company had not provided enough evidence that losing the premises would cause harm that damages could not compensate, or that its undertaking to pay damages if required had substance. He also found that the failure to disclose the unpaid rent in the original injunction application was material, though he accepted that the eviction ban was the primary basis for the earlier interim order.
The court refused the interlocutory application. It made no ruling on the merits of any future application for relief against forfeiture or a business-equity lease, and no final decision on the lease dispute. The judge invited submissions on costs and proposed an expedited timetable for pleadings so the case could proceed to trial.