Moorhouse & Mohan goes into administration
"The company has been involved in two long, ongoing legal cases, one involving Barts in Belgium and the other with Ambient of Israel. Neither case has been finalised but the costs of continuing to contest matters cannot be justified in the present trading environment. The downturn of business in the fruit and vegetable wholesale sector generally and an increasing number of bad debts has led the directors, after 35 years of trading, reluctantly to put the company into voluntary administration", according to a spokesman from the company.
Neither of the legal cases have been finalised in the courts. In both cases the directors feel that the company’s position is fully justified but the company does not feel it is in the interests of creditors to continue. Significant further funds are required for the litigation, without the certainty of an appropriate outcome.
This decision does not affect the ongoing trading activities of any other companies, as Moorhouse and Mohan were a stand alone company. The Worldwide Trading Team Ltd and The Worldwide Farming Partnership Ltd. will continue to trade as normal.
Bart Lamaire, Managing Director from Bart's Potato Company stated that this is not the case however, "Moorhouse & Mohan has been condemned by an arbitration commission of the potato trading sector in the first degree in Edinburgh (on 15th August 2014) and in appeal in Paris (on 9th March 2016) to pay to Bart's Potato Company in round figures € 530,000 and £ 20,200.
"The award of the arbitration commission has been declared enforceable by the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris in the beginning of May 2016.
"Moorhouse & Mohan have subsequently incorrectly applied to the English court, who did not have jurisdiction to deal, to seek to prevent the execution in England of the judgement already made. As a matter of fact however, there is a final binding judgement of the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris which stands.," according to Bart's Potato Company."