Court defers case of Chinese manager

A court order restraining a Chinese restaurant owner from sacking his manager was based on misleading evidence, the High Court…

A court order restraining a Chinese restaurant owner from sacking his manager was based on misleading evidence, the High Court was told yesterday.

Mr Adrian Hardiman SC, counsel for Cabrich Ltd, which operates Diep le Shaker restaurant in Pembroke Lane, Dublin, said an injunction had been granted to Mr Simon Lee "on foot of an affidavit which I think we can demonstrate to be absolutely mendacious".

Last Friday, Mr Justice O'Neill heard a series of claims by Mr Lee concerning the behaviour of the restaurant company's managing director, Mr Matthew Farrell.

Yesterday Mr Hardiman told the court Mr Lee had been dismissed recently for a variety of alleged matters which his client had now set out on affidavit.

READ MORE

They included Mr Lee's repeated failure to operate a proper financial system, taking cash out of the business and having possession of a computer disk which deleted invoices from the system.

Mr Hardiman claimed Mr Lee had been responsible for destroying company records for the purpose of possessing himself of money. This had been observed by a chef who had sworn an affidavit to this effect.

Mr Roddy Horan, counsel for Mr Lee, said he had been served with a number of affidavits yesterday morning and applied for an adjournment until next week.

He said Mr Hardiman had put forward a series of matters which obviously did not reflect very well on Mr Lee.

The letter of dismissal which Mr Lee received referred to alleged negligence on his part and that theme had been taken up by the solicitor for Cabrich Ltd.

"There was never a case made to the effect that my client had engaged in the sort of nefarious activities canvassed by Mr Hardiman," Mr Horan said.

On agreement between the parties that Mr Lee would not attend at the restaurant and Cabrich Ltd would not appoint anyone to his position, other than allow someone for the time being to discharge the functions of manager, the proceedings were adjourned until Thursday.