{"id":528553,"date":"2026-07-02T01:45:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T01:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/528553\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T01:45:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T01:45:16","slug":"supermacs-awarded-e96000-over-breach-of-franchise-agreement-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/528553\/","title":{"rendered":"Supermac\u2019s awarded \u20ac96,000 over breach of franchise agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former Supermac\u2019s franchisee must pay over \u20ac96,000 in damages to the fast-food chain over a breach of their franchise agreement, the High Court<\/a> has ruled.<\/p>\n

Supermac\u2019s Ireland Ltd sued Watchford Ltd, claiming the franchisee was in breach of their agreement arising from unpaid fees.<\/p>\n

Watchford, an entity controlled by couple John and Mary Lyons, formally operated a Supermac\u2019s franchise at two premises in Limerick \u2014 one on Ennis Rd and the other at Dooradoyle. The former restaurant opened in 1995, while the latter began trading in 2003.<\/p>\n

Watchford made a counterclaim in the proceedings for overpaid restaurant equipment fees.<\/p>\n

About 60% of Supermac\u2019s restaurants in Ireland are operated by franchisees. Franchisees pay a fee to Supermac\u2019s to benefit from use of the Supermac\u2019s brand, marketing, and operational support. The fee is calculated as a percentage of an individual restaurant\u2019s monthly turnover.<\/p>\n

No written agreement<\/p>\n

In a judgment published this week, Mr Justice David Keane noted that \u201cperhaps surprisingly\u201d there was no written agreement underpinning the franchise arrangement between Supermac\u2019s and Watchford.<\/p>\n

Both restaurants operated successfully regardless, the judge said, and noted that Watchford had recorded an aggregate turnover in excess of \u20ac47m at the Ennis Rd premises between 1995 and 2018.<\/p>\n

The dispute before the court arose from Watchford\u2019s decision, from August 2018, to reduce its monthly payments to Supermac\u2019s from 10% of its turnover to 7% of its turnover at the Ennis Rd premises.<\/p>\n

This was in circumstances where Watchford previously asserted that the 3% difference was an equipment fee, and was only owed to Supermac\u2019s when the amount paid to Supermac\u2019s cumulatively equalled the value of the restaurant\u2019s fit-out and refurbishment works, the judge said.<\/p>\n

In the alternative, the 3% fee was subject to a rebate in the event of payments exceeding the value of the fit-out and refurbishments, Watchford claimed.<\/p>\n

Watchford also asserted that agreement to any further fit-out or refurbishment of the Ennis Rd store was contingent on a waiver of the 3% fee.<\/p>\n

Supermac\u2019s opposed this and maintained that the appropriate payment was an \u201cundifferentiated\u201d 10% franchise fee.<\/p>\n

Watchford wrote to Supermac\u2019s in August 2018, stating that on account of failure by Supermac\u2019s to refurbish the Ennis Rd restaurant, Watchford was ceasing the 3% fee payments.<\/p>\n

In July 2019, Supermac\u2019s terminated the Watchford franchises.<\/p>\n

Supermac\u2019s sued, claiming Watchford owed \u20ac106,505.02 in unpaid franchise fees and other related fees.<\/p>\n

Counterclaim<\/p>\n

Watchford made a counterclaim for \u20ac907,000, arising from what it said were overpayments on equipment fees.<\/p>\n

The judge found that on the balance of probabilities, the correct fee owed by Watchford to Supermac\u2019s was a \u201csingle, undifferentiated franchise fee\u201d of 10% of the monthly turnover.<\/p>\n

The judge said he accepted the evidence of Supermac\u2019s boss Pat McDonagh \u201cacross all of the restaurant premises it owns\u201d \u2014 which included the Ennis Rd store \u2014 \u201cSupermac\u2019s charges a franchise fee of 10% of turnover\u201d.<\/p>\n

At restaurants where Supermac\u2019s does not own the premises, it charges a 6% or 7% franchise fee, according to Mr McDonagh, the judge noted.<\/p>\n

The judge said that while he did not doubt the honesty and sincerity of John Lyons\u2019s belief that the parties agreed to a 7% franchise fee and 3% equipment fee, he said he was \u201cnot persuaded that [Mr Lyons] is correct in that regard\u201d.<\/p>\n

The judge found further the oral franchise agreement between the parties provided that the 10% fee be paid without regard to the cost of works carried out at the Ennis Rd premises.<\/p>\n

By unilaterally reducing its payments from 10% to 7%, Watchford breached the agreement between the parties, the judge found.<\/p>\n

The judge also dismissed Watchford\u2019s counterclaim.<\/p>\n

The judge said he would grant judgment to Supermac\u2019s in the sum of \u20ac96,263.84.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Supermac\u2019s franchisee must pay over \u20ac96,000 in damages to the fast-food chain over a breach of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-528553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-courts","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}