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Press Release

PRESS RELEASE: 9/3/10

Punch Taverns is to face court claims over the validity and accuracy of information it provided about a pub's trade to induce tenants into signing a lease which gave them no chance of success.

The UK's largest pubco will be accused of negligently distorting previous levels of trade in a case due to be heard at Nottingham County Court this month.

The dispute, which could have implications across the licensed trade, centres on the Robin Hood pub in Sherwood, Nottingham.

It traded as a John Barras chain outlet before Punch offered it for lease in 2006 - despite retaining other Barras pubs in the area as managed houses following a review.

In the same year Philip Sambell, Julian Phillips and David Hope were looking to run a pub as tenants.

They looked at several in Nottingham before beginning negotiations to lease the Robin Hood from Punch and finally took over the business in the summer of 2007.

Since then they have invested their life savings of £90,000 and have transformed the business from a run-down chain outlet into a vibrant, award-winning community pub.

But despite their success in turning the pub's fortunes around its finances have been blighted by the terms of the lease - which they claim was based on false figures.

Now the trio are preparing to take on Punch in a legal fight to prove they were misled into entering a business arrangement which could only end in failure for them.

Mr Sambell, the licensee with 30 years trade experience, said: "Our business plan was based on the very limited financial information available from Punch – principally the barrelage for the previous 12 months in the Christies brochure where we first saw this opportunity and from purportedly current barrelage figures we were given in response to our request for historic and current information when we were creating our business plan.

"We went into this with our eyes open - we knew the smoking ban was imminent, we knew there had been a World Cup the previous summer.

"We came up with a very conservative estimate of future trade taking all these factors into account and build our projections around that.

"But what we did not and could not know is that the barrelage figures given to us by Punch were some 30 per cent higher than the real figure.

"That's a difference of around 65,000 pints a year, a huge amount in financial terms which meant all our predicted takings were meaningless."

Mr Sambell, 50, said he discovered the true barrelage soon after taking over the pub, when Punch granted access to monitoring figures provided by Brulines and was able to download the previous year’s dispense data from when the pub was managed by the Spirit Group ( a division of Punch).

Brulines is an independent company which electronically monitors the amount of beer dispensed by each pump in over 22,000 houses across the UK.

"The Brulines figure was radically different from that provided by Punch," Mr Sambell said.

"It may be of great interest to Brulines and other licensees that Punch is now claiming that because the pub was a managed pub (at the time) that the 'the Brulines data was neither monitored nor accurate”

"As Brulines' figures are used by pubcos to evict tenants they believe are buying beer outside their tie agreement any suggestion they are inaccurate is very serious."

After discovering the true picture the trio tried to talk to Punch but claim the company refused to admit any wrongdoing and the information on the previous years dispense data disappeared from view.

"We tried to get them to talk about reducing the rent and address the problems we had identified but they steadfastly refused," Mr Sambell added,

"But even at this late stage we are prepared to sit down and try to thrash out an agreement which compensates us for our losses and sets a level playing field for the future, however even our offer of independent mediation has been refused.

"We have invested our life-savings and three years of our lives into this business and do not want to walk away but Punch just does not seem interested which we find strange if compared to their public stance”

“In their latest Interim Management Statement Punch speaks of introducing a number of improvements “to cement our commitment to build more honest and transparent partnerships with our licensees”.

“Perhaps they should now live up to that commitment to their shareholders and their tenants”

At a preliminary hearing last year the trio won a partial victory when they were released from their tie to Punch pending the outcome of the case which is listed for five days beginning on Monday, March 15.

For your ease of reference the case is listed as:

PUNCH PARTNERSHIPS (PUBS) LIMITED V SKITTLES AND BEER LIMITED, HOPE, PHILLIPS AND SAMBELL CLAIM NUMBER 9NG03871

BBC Tree O'clock

Well the Robin Hood was represented by Julian, David, Diane & Geoff this morning for the BBC Tree O'clock world record attempt. Between us we planted a total of 100 trees at Woodthorpe Park in Sherwood. The weather was perfect & it was also great fun.

Our 50th Tree

Our 100th Tree

HELP STOP NEW THREAT TO PUBS - SAY NO TO NEW CODE

Email from Axe The Beer Tax Campaign:

"With 50 pubs now closing every week across Britain as a result of the recession and record tax rises, landlords are now facing a further threat to their livelihoods under Government plans to impose a new costly and bureaucratic "mandatory code".

Home Office Ministers say the code is needed to tackle anti-social disorder. But, as ever, it is the decent, responsible majority that will have to pay for it. The cost to the British pub industry of implementing these new regulations would be an estimated £58 million in the first year and £38 million in subsequent years - costs that will hit landlords and consumers alike.

While one or two parts of the code may be sensible in themselves - stopping bars and pubs holding irresponsible promotions like "all you can drink for a tenner", for instance - using the law in this way is like using a hammer to crack a nut. It is yet further evidence of the nanny state going too far not least because local councils and the police have the powers they need to tackle alcohol-related disorder already.

Pubs provide a good environment to be able to supervise and control drinking and encourage responsible behavior - and the vast majority of pubs work closely with local police and councils to tackle anti-social behavior where it occurs. So hitting pubs with more and more costs only helps to undermine the best solution to the problem of excessive drinking.

The Home Office is now asking the public for its views on its plans as part of its "consultation process". So the good news is that you, the responsible majority of decent, law-abiding consumers and landlords concerned about the future of the Great British Pub, do have an opportunity to make your views heard by Government Ministers.

We are therefore asking that you click here to answer the questions posed by the Government in the way that we think will best minimise the cost to British pubs and stop the present record pub closure rate getting even worse.

But hurry, you have to get your response to the Home Office by Wednesday 5th August for it to be considered.

Thank you so much for your ongoing support in helping us oppose threats to a great British institution."

Click Here To Make Your Opinion Heard


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