A deluxe antiques dealer is locked in a bitter court battle with a former intern who claims she has a right to be handed half of his £1million company.
Christopher Howe runs a high end antiques and interiors empire in Pimlico Road, London, worth millions, which has boasted distinguished clients including Hollywood legend Richard Gere, artist Lucian Freud and even Hampton Court Palace.
The business, however, is now at the centre of a court fight over ownership between founder Mr Howe, 63, and Joanne Brierley, a family friend and former intern who began working for him unpaid as a student in 2008 and rose to become his right-hand woman.
Ms Brierley, 37, says she helped Mr Howe grow his business, which split into two separate companies in 2014, as a partner in all but name and was promised she would have half of the company behind the textiles side of his empire in a deal that he later reneged on.
Mr Howe denies making any such promise to his ex-intern, however, and after a falling out which saw Ms Brierley removed as a director of the company, the pair are now gearing up for a court fight over ownership of the luxury leather and fabrics brand.
London’s High Court heard that Mr Howe began his business in 1986 from a ‘tiny shop’ at 36 Bourne Street, close to Sloane Square, specialising in furniture restoration and gilding.
He ‘soon expanded to the restoration and retailing of antiques, antique lighting and furniture making, securing an early commission for the National Gallery,’ Judge Sally Barber explained.
Over the years, Mr Howe established a trusted reputation, providing works for some of Britain’s most famous cultural institutions, including The Royal Pavilion in Brighton, the Sir John Soane’s museum and Hampton Court Palace, the last of which he supplied with an 18-foot-high George I four poster bed, made in 1712, which he had sourced and restored.
Deluxe antiques dealer Christopher Howe, pictured, is locked in a bitter court battle with a former intern who claims she has a right to be handed half of his £1million company
Mr Howe runs a high end antiques and interiors empire. Pictured is his shop in Pimlico Road, London
He expanded to a bigger shop in Pimlico Road, Belgravia, in 1995 as his reputation grew, with celebrity clients reportedly including painter Lucien Freud, who liked his ‘esoterically shabby chairs to use in his portraits’ and actor Richard Gere.
The judge explained that Ms Brierley, then an art student, became involved in 2008 when her college friend, Mr Howe’s daughter, Holly, asked him if he could offer her an internship.
‘He agreed to do so. The unpaid internship took place between September and December 2008,’ she added.
After graduating in the summer of 2009, she began working there full-time, and in 2010, it was agreed she would focus on helping to develop his leather, fabrics and wallpaper arm, conducted from the original shop in Bourne Street, whilst Mr Howe would focus on the rest of his business.
Mr Howe set up Bourne London Ltd in 2013 and ran both shops through his new company, then in the spring of 2014 he ‘proposed to Ms Brierley’ – by then an important part of his set up – that the leather, fabrics and wallpaper business should be separated into a new company, 36 Bourne Street Ltd, whose ‘day-to-day affairs would be managed by her’.
Ms Brierley says that they agreed that she would have a 25% share in the new company, subject to revenue targets being met, and that in 2018 after she had guided the new company to success.
An improved promise was then made that she would be given a 50% stake in the shares of the company, of which she was by then already a minor shareholder and managing director.
The judge said that the pair fell out after Ms Brierley returned from an extended business trip in India and told her mentor that she wanted to leave and set up her own business.
Ms Brierley (pictured), 37, says she helped Mr Howe grow his business as a partner in all but name and was promised she would have half of the company
Mr Howe’s store has boasted distinguished clients including Hollywood legend Richard Gere, pictured
They were initially working towards an ‘amicable’ parting until Ms Brierley began ‘demanding a 49% buyout as a condition of her departure,’ Mr Howe says.
Now the pair are set to face off in court over ownership of the company, which in 2022 had listed assets on Companies House of around £1m.
In a judgment relating to a preliminary company law issue, Judge Barber said that Mr Howe ‘denies that any firm or unqualified agreement to transfer 49%/50% of the shares in the company to Ms Brierley was reached in July 2018 or at all.’
‘He maintains that he agreed to “gift” five per cent of his 100% shareholding in the company to her as she had attained the revenue target of £280,000 for the year ending 31 July 2017 that they had expressly agreed,’ she said.
And he had agreed to ‘gift’ another five per cent in 2018 at her ‘insistence,’ she having worked hard the previous year.
‘He says that any discussions of arrangements that would result in [her] receiving further shares in the company were at all material times understood by both…to be subject to legal, including tax, advice and ultimately came to nothing.’
Ms Brierley disagrees however, claiming that, amongst other things, in July 2019 Mr Howe took her for ‘lunch at ‘Joe & the Juice’ in Wimbledon’ and assured her ‘that she could trust him to honour the 49% agreement and directed her to leave the matter with him.’
Among Mr Howe’s famous clients at his antique shop was Lucian Freud
Over the years, Mr Howe established provided works for Hampton Court Palace, pictured
She also relies on a company ‘rebranding exercise’ in August 2019, during which references to ‘Howe’ were removed from the company’s branding and new stationery and other materials were produced that read ’36 Bourne Street Ltd* Proprietors C. Howe & J. Brierley.
Mr Howe however ‘maintains that the exercise was undertaken in order to improve Ms Brierley’s morale’ rather than in recognition of any promise to make her an equal partner.
The judge ruled in favour of Mr Howe on an initial skirmish, striking out two grounds of claim by Ms Brierley based on company law.
But she is still suing in her personal capacity in her main claim that Mr Howe is holding 39% of the shares in 36 Bourne Street Ltd ‘on trust’ for her, making up her promised 49% share along with the 10% she currently has.
The judge said that the court will have to hear evidence about how the company was formed, whether it was a partnership type arrangement, and about alleged promises made by Mr Howe about shares.
The court will also consider the extent to which Ms Brierley relied on alleged promises in carrying on with her life, and whether Mr Howe holds shares on trust for her.
The case will return to court at a later date.