Wellington's Portofino restaurant is in a court dispute with its landlord, NZX-listed Stride Property.
Wellington's Portofino restaurant is in a court dispute with its landlord, NZX-listed Stride Property.
Fourty-four-year-old Italian-style Wellington waterfront restaurant Portofino is suing landlord Stride Property over its lease and wants $8.9 million compensation in the dispute.
Portofino Wellington Waterfront wants to extend its lease on the restaurant premises Stride owns.
But the lease expired in September 2022 with no right of renewal, according toa decision from the High Court at Auckland this month from Associate Justice Clive Taylor.
The restaurant is dug in and wants to stay.
The Portofino in the case is at 33 Customhouse Quay in central Wellington, has an outdoor seating area and says it was established in 1980.
“Portofino claims that it is entitled to a new lease for 12 years from December 2020, including rights of renewal, or alternatively claims losses of $8.9 million for Stride’s alleged failure to grant the new lease,” the February 19 decision says.
“Portofino seeks relief on the basis of terms it says were offered by Stride by email on 5 October 2020, and says that Stride misled or misrepresented the position to Portofino ... by sending this email but not granting the lease,” the newly released decision says.
Stride rejected the allegations and said Portofino was not entitled to any relief.
The landlord also applied for summary judgment and/or a strikeout application of Portofino’s action and sought security of costs.
Stride owns that building, announcing in 2017 it had secured a new 12-year lease with Meridian Energy for office space there.
Stride CEO Philip Littlewood. Photo / Supplied
Philip Littlewood is Stride’s chief executive and the company has a market capitalisation on the NZX of $731 million.
The court decision of February 19 says that in December, Portofino had made an interlocutory application for discovery of documents from Stride.
Portofino wants:
Board minutes of Stride;
Communications to and from the Stride board;
Communications between members of Stride staff;
Communications between Stride and other third parties about negotiation of rent abatement referred to in Portofino’s statement of claim;
Communications and negotiations that occurred in relation to the offering up of a renewal of lease to Portofino.
On January 30, Stride opposed Portofino’s application for discovery of those documents.
So the matter was due to go for a two-hour hearing or be dealt with on papers.
Stride argued via its lawyer, David Friar, that the court should instead deal with the security-of-costs matter before deciding whether Portofino should get the documents.
The judge backed Stride and said Portofino’s application for discovery should be adjourned until after Stride’s application for summary judgment and/or the strike and security of costs had been determined.
Portofino’s application for discovery was adjourned.
Stride’s application for summary judgment and/or strike-out is set down to be heard in a one-day fixture on May 2.
The matter is continuing.
Stride’s Littlewood said today: “We strongly dispute the claim and are going through the process.”
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, has won many awards, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
