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Member, Beacon International Group, Ltd.
People risks are one of the biggest concerns that companies face, and superstar TV chef and restaurateur Gordon Ramsay recently found that even working with family members can pose a risk when he was saddled with a hefty legal bill.
Mr. Ramsay entered a kitchen nightmare of his own when he lost a high court battle against his estranged father-in-law, whom Mr. Ramsay had accused of forging his signature on a 25-year lease on a London public house.
Mr. Ramsay had claimed that John Hutcheson had used an autopen — that usually was used for signing cook books and merchandise — to secure the lease on the York & Albany pub near Regent's Park in north London in 2008.
Mr. Ramsay said Mr. Hutcheson, whom he fired as CEO of his management team in 2010, had signed him up as a personal guarantor for the £640,000 ($970,000)-per-year rent for the pub, a fashionable eatery, without his knowledge.
In the High Court in London, however, Mr. Justice Morgan said it was “entirely implausible” that Mr. Ramsay did not know the full extent of the use of the autopen.
The judge, according to the Daily Telegraph, found that the machine frequently was used to sign legal documents and that Mr. Hutcheson had been given free rein to do as he wished in his role as CEO.
The judge refused Mr. Ramsay permission to appeal, and the famously foul-mouthed chef now faces a legal bill of about £1 million ($1.5 million).
Revenge, as they say, is a dish best served cold.
British insurers moving into a new London high-rise may be recalculating their risks after parts of three huge bolts plunged to the ground from the recently opened building.