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31 March 2006
Like other publicans at the time, Graham was part of the fight against brewers to establish that their pub leases were anti-competitive. Publicans had claims, because as a result of oppressive prices unable to compete with other pubs and were going out of business and losing money.
Graham had a pub in Luton. He had to buy beer from a brewer who had him on a pub tie. The price of the beer was too high, Gemmell was losing money. His problem was that he couldn't retain the pub under the lease unless he paid rent, but he wanted to be able to set off the excess price of beer under the tie (under legal challenge) against the ongoing rent.
Under English law, it was not clear that he could do so although morally he was entitled to. He wanted to be able to set off price against rent for quite a long time, while the publican's challenge to the validity of the pub leases went up through the English court system and eventually to the European Court of Justice.
As it was new law his case had to be fought to try and set a precedent. This meant going all the way up the English court system as far as the House of Lords. Unfortunately, the House of Lords would not grant him the set off and his business couldn't wait for the European court ruling in the end. Nevertheless, we fought tooth and nail. The case did end up clarifying/changing the legal point.
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