An inventor has claimed in the High Court that a company he set up with a businessman is seeking to assert ownership over a formulation he created for the world’s first cement free concrete products.
He recently discovered the formula for cement-free products and after he refused to sign a shareholders’ agreement giving him just 30 per cent when he asked for 40 per cent, he was excluded from the business he helped set up.Justine McCarthy: Had Mary Lou stuck with Fianna Fáil, she could be closer to becoming first woman taoiseachMark O’Connell: Glitch, glitch.
He said while he, Mr Vickers, became a director of Creekmount, Mr McCann held his interest through corporate entities he controlled and his daughter Shannen, his business associate John Kerr and his accountant Eugene O’Boyle, were nominated to act on his behalf. Mr McCann was the “real” majority shareholder in Creekmount, he said.
Last January, he received a positive testing result from an independent UK lab which confirmed he now had the world’s first cement free formulation. In February, he again asked Mr McCann to increase his shareholding in Creekmount to 40 per cent but he was not happy to do so. Mr Vickers believes there was no intention on the part of Mr McCann “to ever confer additional rights on me, or to agree terms in respect of the global IP rights, were I to permit the company to use Ashtec’s cement free formula”.