THE developer behind the scrapped £300m ‘Summer Row’ retail development in Wolverhampton has been awarded just £2 in compensation by the High Court in London.
Belfast-based Multi was seeking around £28m compensation from NI Summer Row Unitholder – a group of investors which had promised to plough £27m worth of investment into the development, to be matched by Multi.
Multi’s 600,000 sq ft scheme would have seen more than 90 retail units, including plots for a Debenhams and Marks & Spencer, a car park and residential units.
The agreement between the two was terminated in February 2009 following a failure by NI Summer Row Unitholder to produce banking guarantees to Multi.
By that stage, Multi itself had already spent around £28m of its own capital on the scheme.
Although the developer won the case, Mr Justice Kim Lewison awarded Multi just £2 and ordered it to pay around £900,000 in legal costs accrued by the investors for the case.
The High Court ruling said the financial consequences of building the scheme would have meant Multi incurring a loss of £81m had it progressed to completion.
Although Multi established a breach of contract, it failed to prove the project would have been built but for the breach and failed to show any loss, the ruling added.
