Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay today attended the high court for the opening of his bid to be removed as personal guarantor of the lease for one of his London restaurants.
Ramsay claims that his signature was added to the document by a “ghost writer” – a wet ink signature machine intended to reproduce his autograph on merchandising material – during a widespread fraud carried out by his father-in-law, Christopher Hutcheson.
According to documents before the court, Ramsay’s prior claim against Hutcheson, over a fraud said to have cost Ramsay and the Gordon Ramsay Group hundreds of thousands of pounds, has been settled on confidential terms.
The chef says that all other aspects of the fraud have now been dealt with, and that this case is of key importance to him as it is the last remaining effect, and one that exposes him to the enormous pressure of being a personal guarantor to what could potentially be a substantial group liability.
He is seeking a declaration that he is not bound by the personal guarantee in respect of the lease for the York & Albany restaurant near Regents Park, because he did not sign it and did not authorise anyone to sign it on his behalf.
However, landlord of the premises Gary Love is defending the six-day action, and while he no longer alleges that Ramsay personally signed the document, he claims that Hutcheson was authorised to use the ghost writer machine either expressly, or as part of his general authority to manage Ramsay’s business in his former role as director and chief executive of group companies.
In written arguments before the court, Jonathan Seitler QC said: “The claimant and the defendant are both victims of Christopher Hutcheson’s fraud. It is a deeply unfortunate situation for both the claimant and the defendant. However, the legal effect of Christopher Hutcheson’s fraud on this occasion is that the personal guarantee simply does not bind the claimant.”
Romie Tager QC, representing Love, said at the start of the hearing that the ghost writer was “designed to mislead; it has no purpose other than to mislead”.
While he said that it may have been purchased for the purpose of “low level deception”, such as putting Ramsay’s signature on books and leading their purchasers to believe they were signed by hand, this, he claimed, was a case of “medium level deception or even high level deception”.
He said: “We say that in the 21st century there is no magic in a signature being written by hand. Signatures can be written electronically. Another way of signatures being written in the 21st century is by machine.
“We say that if you acquire such a machine and it writes your signature it is the same as your handwritten signature. It doesn’t matter if Mr Ramsay’s hand held the pen. His machine held the pen.”
The trial continues.
