A LEGAL row over the Rogano restaurant in Glasgow has been settled hours before the Supreme Court was due to hear the case, justices have been told.
The UK’s highest court, which is hearing cases in the Scottish city this week, was due to hear a challenge by Forthwell Limited, which has traded as Rogano since 1935, over a contract dispute with its landlord, Pontegadea UK.
The restaurant has been closed since the Covid-19 pandemic after becoming unsafe due to repeated flooding and an electrical fire.
The two sides had been in a legal battle over whether Pontegadea should compensate Forthwell for lost profits, with repairs still incomplete.
The row was due to be heard at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, but at the start of the hearing, David M Thomson KC, for Forthwell, said the two parties reached an agreement on Tuesday evening.
No details of the settlement were disclosed in court.
Both sides argued the appeal should still be heard to resolve the wider legal issues in the case, with justices told at least one other case had been paused pending the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Lord Reed, the president of the Supreme Court, said: “It is a matter of public importance that the time of the court is used in the public interest, and it is in the public interest that we should resolve the legal question raised by the case, which will be important in other cases.”
Thomson had earlier apologised for the claim settling at such a late stage, stating it was a “matter of considerable professional embarrassment” and adding that attempts to resolve the dispute earlier this year had failed.
He said: “It is only in the course of the last week that the parties have been able to resolve the gap that existed between them.
“I cannot present that to the court as an acceptable narrative, because it is not.”
He acknowledged that while the end of the “long-running dispute” is “good news for the parties themselves and indeed the patrons of the Rogano, I fully accept that settlement of the proceedings on the literal eve of the appeal before this court is, to put it mildly, highly unsatisfactory”.
Lord Reed replied: “Yes, that is putting it mildly.”
Roddy Dunlop KC, the dean of the Faculty of Advocates, also said he was “mortified to be standing here in this situation”.
Court documents for the hearing said that in 2013, Forthwell assigned its interest in the lease of the Rogano to a subsidiary, Lynnet Leisure Rogano Limited, which continued trading at the site under a “licence to occupy”.
The Rogano was damaged by flooding in December 2020 and January 2021, which caused an electrical fire, leaving the building unsafe, but the two sides had been unable to agree on the scope of the repairs.
Forthwell had claimed that as Pontegadea had failed to repair the site, as required by the tenancy agreement, it had caused Lynnet Leisure to suffer a loss of profits, and took legal action seeking to reclaim both “past and anticipated future losses”.
But Pontegadea said Forthwell could not recover profits lost by Lynnet Leisure as the latter was a third party.
While the Outer House of the Court of Session ruled in Forthwell’s favour in June 2024, that decision was partly overturned by the Inner House in October that year, with the company then taking the case to the Supreme Court.
The hearing before Lord Reed, Lord Stephens, Lord Doherty, Lord Hodge and Lady Simler is due to conclude on Wednesday, with a judgment expected in writing at a later date.
