When Company Law & Property Developments collide: Loggie & Ors v Brady & Ors [2025] EWHC 2938 (Ch)

Judgment has been handed down by the High Court yesterday in Loggie & ors v Brady v Ors [2025] EWHC 2938 (Ch), a company law case involving the well-known mixed use riverside development of Plantation Wharf in Battersea, London.

The judgment concerned an application for final injunctions and declarations concerning the control of Plantation Wharf Management Limited (“the Company”), which is the management company of the Plantation Wharf estate.

A key issue concerned the power of the freeholder owner of the estate, who retained 2 “A shares” in the Company with “super-voting rights”,  to appoint directors to the Company’s board.  There are current plans by the freeholder for a multi-million pound redevelopment of parts of the estate to create new residential elements.  The Respondents included long leaseholders of residential properties that formed part of the original 1980’s development.

Marc Glover, Thomas Dawson and Sami Allan who appeared on behalf of the 1st-4th Respondents successfully argued before Nicola Ruhston KC (sitting as a deputy High Court judge) that, amongst other things, the meaning of “units of accommodation” in the Company’s Articles of Association did not extend to storage rooms and garages that had been retained by the freeholder. This decision is of wide significance to the estate as the answer to this difficult question of interpretation meant that the freeholder had lost its influence over the Company.

The judgment also serves as an interesting exposition of the law relating to director retirement by rotation provisions in a company’s articles of association, as well as the duty of directors in relation to calling a general meeting following the receipt of a members’ requisition notice under s.303 of the Companies Act 2006; two issues on which the Court again favoured the 1^st-4^th Respondents’ arguments.

The Tanfield Team were instructed by Alex Vakil’s commercial litigation team at Joelsons.

A copy of the judgment can be found here.