The High Court has ruled in favour of Bewley's Grafton Street cafe in a row about upward only rents. Bewley's argued the battle over its €1.5 million rent was was of 'vital importance' to its survival.

Mr. Justice Peter Charlton has found that the lease with landlords Ickendel Limited stipulates the rent can never fall below the rate agreed at the first review in 1987.

He then gave the terms of the lease a 'commercial construction' and found it would 'not be in accordance with business sense that a rent appropriate to 5 years previously should govern a hospitality market markedly changed for the worse'.