London Evening Standard/London
Plumbers in the capital are preparing for battle, with London’s biggest private firm accusing a rival of trying to steal famous clients including Keira Knightley and Hugh Grant.
Pimlico Plumbers has launched a £1mn legal claim against Service Corps, alleging industrial espionage and the tapping-up of its staff.
The stage is ready for a High Court showdown between self-made millionaire Charlie Mullins, founder of Pimlico Plumbers, and former Australian news presenter Steve Cosser, who set up Service Corps as a competitor to target the sinks and U-bends of the rich and famous.
Service Corps may be asked to prove it did not steal confidential files to lure Pimlico’s clients, who have also included Daniel Craig, Dame Helen Mirren, Liam Gallagher, Jonathan Ross, Joanna Lumley, Tamara Beckwith, Eric Clapton and Chelsea football players.
Michael Winner has written of leaving Pimlico Plumbers for Service Corps in his Sunday Times column.
Mullins, 57, who has appeared on Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire, left school at 15 to start a plumbing apprenticeship. He founded his business in 1979 and has a turnover of £15mn with annual profits of £2mn.
With his company’s fleet of blue-and-white vans, he has 120 smartly uniformed engineers on call 24 hours a day across the capital, charging £80 an hour for a call-out.
But he says Service Corps has encroached on his empire since Cosser established it in 2007, in offices not far from Pimlico Plumbers. Service Corps has taken on about 14 of Mullins’s former employees.
In the High Court writ, filed by law firm Mischon de Reya acting for Mullins, Service Corps is accused of approaching Pimlico staff to persuade them to breach their contracts and defect to a rival. |
