ROBERT EARL, the British restaurant entrepreneur who founded Planet Hollywood, has added almost £19 million to his personal fortune after the settlement of a legal dispute with Rank Group dating back more than a decade.
Serena Holdings, a trust controlled by Mr Earl, was awarded £10.16 million yesterday in settlement of the dispute with Rank, plus £8.66 million in interest. The amount was decided by a former Arther Andersen partner appointed as an independent abitrator.
The original claim, relating to a business sold by Mr Earl to a company later bought by Rank, was for £108 million plus interest.
The events leading to the dispute date back to 1987, when Mr Earl sold President Entertainments, his restaurant business, to the Pleasurama leisure group. A year later Pleasurama bought a stake in the Hard Rock Café chain but that same year was itself acquired by Mecca Leisure.
In 1991 Mecca was acquired by Rank, which inherited an earn-out agreement reached between Mr Earl and Pleasurama at the time of the purchase of President Entertainments. Under Rank, the earn-out was tweaked to include the performance of Hard Rock, which fell under his management.
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The two sides first tried to calculate the payout due under the earn-out agreement in 1993. Two years later, after a failure to agree a figure, the matter was passed to the independent expert.