British retail chain John Lewis has been taken to court by the current and former owners of Brent Cross shopping centre in London, which claim the retailer has underpaid rent due to online sales collected from the store.

According to a report by the Financial Times, Hammerson and Standard Life Investments, the current and former owners of Brent Cross respectively, are seeking a High Court judgement that click-and-collect sales from the store should be counted as store income for the purpose of its lease.

The case was filed in December, but has only recently entered the public domain.

John Lewis has been an anchor tenant of the shopping centre since it opened in 1976. Its 125-year lease, agreed in 1979, includes a “turnover rent” provision, which requires the company to pay additional fees based on its annual income in addition to a base rent of £30,000 a year.

Under the terms of the lease, the retailer is required to pay the landlord 0.75 per cent of its gross receipts when turnover crosses £4 million, rising to one per cent if it surpasses £10 million annually.

According to the Financial Times, Hammerson and Standard Life argued that although the contract predates John Lewis’s provision of click and collect by several decades, John Lewis should factor these sales into its rent calculation. Its original wording includes “Mail, telephone or similar orders received or filled at or from the demised premises or directed thereto,” in gross receipts.

They also claim the retailer should include collection charges, such as the £2.95 fee for orders under £40.

In defence, the Financial Times reported, John Lewis argued these transactions are exempt from rent calculations because the transaction is completed when the product is dispatched from its main distribution centre to the store.

Retail Systems has reached out to John Lewis for comment.

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