JD Wetherspoon is currently suing its former property advisor Van de Berg & Co for breaching an exclusivity agreement.
The pub group has accused Van de Berg, which is headed by Chris Braun, for allegedly selling sites to other companies when it was exclusively retained by Wetherspoon.
In a court case, which is set to last five weeks, Catherin Newman, who is acting on behalf of Wetherspoon, said that the pubco had paid Van de Berg an annual fee amounting to £14m since the two companies had started working together in 1989.
Van de Berg’s counsel is expected to use the defence that it was not exclusively retained by Wetherspoon and that the sites sold to others were not suitable or could not be afforded by the pub chain.
