A company has agreed, pending further order of the High Court, not to engage experts to try to analyse what a chemist says is his invention of the world’s first cement-free product for use in the construction industry.
Christopher Vickers, who is a chemist by profession, says he has invented a formulation which he says is something of the “Holy Grail” in terms of the need to transition to more sustainable lower carbon products compared to traditional and standard products.
He claims he and businessman John McCann agreed to enter business together in 2022 and they both invested in a company called Creekmount Ltd which opened a processing plant in Dundalk earlier this year.
Mr Vickers said while Mr McCann was not a director he was in effective control of the company. Mr McCann agreed to invest more than €1 million while Mr Vickers agreed to invest €250,000 which he says rose to €420,000.
Mr Vickers and his own company, Ashtec IP Services Ltd, say however that Creekmount now is trying to assert ownership over his formulation.
Mr Vickers says while working to open up the Creekmount business – which was he says only for the production of cement based products – he was also separately working on a cement free formulation.
He says in doing so this was solo separate work from his Creekmount activities and wearing his “hat” as director of Ashtec.
After getting an independent test result on his product earlier this which he says confirmed he had invented the world’s first cement free formulation, he asked Mr McCann to up his 30 per cent share in Creekmount to 40 per cent but Mr McCann was not happy to do so.
Relations soured and he says he is now excluded from the business.
He asked the court last week for a number of interim orders but was only granted one, relating to non-disclosure of confidential information about the formula.
The case was adjourned to Tuesday when Mr Justice Oisín Quinn was told by barrister Anthony Thuillier for Mr Vickers and Ashtec, that the defendant had agreed to give certain undertakings pending hearing of the case.
One undertaking was to continue not to disclose the formulation while an additional one was also given in which it was agreed not to engage third parties to analyse the cement free product in its possession for the purpose of seeking to retro-engineer the formulation.
Barrister Barry Mansfield, for Creekmount, said his client agreed to the undertakings.
Mr Justice Quinn adjourned the matter for three weeks and also gave directions for exchange of affidavits. The interim court order now lapses on the basis of the undertakings, he said.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
