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LONDON, CMC - The Jamaican-born entrepreneur and media personality Levi Roots, has won his legal battle in respect of the origins of his famous and very successful Reggae Reggae sauce.
In ruling against the accusation that Mr Roots had stolen the recipe from Tony Bailey, a cafe owner from Brixton in south-west London, with whom the defendant had run a stall at the Notting Hill Carnival for 15 years, and his financial adviser Sylvester Williams, Judge Mark Pelling said that the media personality had been guilty of “fraudulent misrepresentation”.
Roots, 53, shot to prominence after winning investment of £50,000 from the television programme Dragons’ Den. It is estimated that subsequent investment has made him a multi-millionaire.
Some points in Mr Roots’ application to the television programme have been reported as being less than honest and he has admitted that the famed claim that the sauce was invented by his grandmother had been used as a legacy to help market the product.
“I was just trying to promote the sauce in the best way possible. I didn’t think they would use the story but that it would be about the taste,” he told the court.
Roots, also known as Keith Valentine Graham, came to public notice first as a reggae singer. His record shows him to have performed with James Brown and Maxi Priest and to have been a friend of Bob Marley when he was living in the United Kingdom.
Mr Bailey had claimed that the singer had derived the sauce from his own “unique and secret recipe”. He and Mr Williams had hoped to obtain £600,000 compensation and a “cut” of the sales proceeds.
However, Judge Pelling said, in dismissing their claims for breach of contract and breach of confidence: “I do not consider this recipe is sufficiently well developed to be capable of being confidential information” and added “This was a dishonest claim, dishonestly advanced”.
The judge refused leave to appeal on the grounds that “it was a claim which was advanced in circumstances where, to the knowledge of the claimants, they had no proper basis for advancing it”.
The case is estimated to have cost more than £1 million and Mr Bailey and Mr Williams have been directed to pay the defendant’s costs of around £ 250,000.