Copper Face Jacks' reduced €1.15m rates bill must be reconsidered, court rules

High Court reporters

The company operating Dublin nightclub Copper Face Jacks and the adjoining hotel must have a decision which reduced a €1.75 million commercial rates bill to €1.15 million reconsidered, the Court of Appeal (CoA) has ruled.

The CoA upheld a High Court decision that the Commissioner of Valuation was entitled to an order directing a reconsideration of how the rates on the nightclub and the Jackson Court Hotel in Harcourt Street were calculated.

The Commissioner had argued rates should be calculated based on a €1.75 million estimated net annual value (NAV).

In 2021, the Commissioner asked the High Court to determine legal issues arising from a decision of the Valuation Tribunal to reduce the NAV to €1.155 million.

The case arose after the valuation office completed a revaluation of business premises in the Dublin City Council area in 2013.

Breanagh Catering Ltd, which operates the Jackson Court Hotel and Copper Face Jacks, had appealed to the tribunal that the €1.75 million NAV was excessive, instead proposing a NAV of €840,000.

The tribunal’s 2016 decision on a €1.15 million NAV arose after it provided for 11 per cent to be applied to the nightclub’s door and cloakroom revenue of €3.2 million, and an allowance of some €200,000 to reflect the agreed “exceptional” expertise of the occupier.

In October 2021, the High Court found the tribunal erred in law in several respects, including in not giving adequate reasons for its various findings.

The High Court said the sole issue in dispute in the appeal before the tribunal was the percentage to be applied to door and cloakroom receipts, associated with the nightclub, in respect of revenue exceeding €1 million. For the purposes of the tribunal appeal, the total agreed door/cloakroom revenue was some €3.2 million.

The High Court found the tribunal was incorrect in, among other things, focussing on the percentages to be applied to those receipts instead of considering if the €1.75 million NAV was excessive.

Breanagh Catering appealed the High Court decision, while the Commissioner opposed the appeal.

On Friday, Mr Justice Robert Haughton, on behalf of the three-judge CoA, found that Breanagh failed to establish any error on the part of the High Court in deciding the tribunal failed to give adequate reasons for its decision.

The CoA directed the matter be remitted to a different tribunal panel for a fresh hearing of Breanagh’s appeal from the Commissioner’s decision.