Sale of bar for €5m is blocked

The landlord of Dublin’s Café en Seine bar is refusing to consent to a bank-appointed receiver’s proposed assignment of a lease on the premises so it can be sold for €5m, it was claimed in the Commercial Court yesterday.

Pearse Farrell, who was appointed receiver by AIB in December 2009 to the bar’s operating company, Perfect Pies Ltd, is seeking a declaration that Chupn Ltd, a company of publican Louis Fitzgerald, is acting unreasonably in refusing to consent to the assignment under landlord and tenant legislation and under the a clause in the lease.

Yesterday, the case was admitted to the Commercial Court list despite opposition from Rossa Fanning BL, for Chupn, who claimed that such a transfer was premature.