subject: London Plumber Takes His Rivals To The Cleaners [print this page] All is fair in love and war they say, but recently there has been some unrest in the capital between a couple of London plumbers, with allegations flying back and forth about possible client poaching.
The allegation all started with Charlie Mullins who is a London plumber and owner of Pimlico Plumbers which services a number of A-list clients in capital noted that he was losing more than just a few employees.
Basically the grievance started when a few of Mr Mullins employees were tempted away by a rival London plumber, Steve Cosser who is the owner of Service Corps, it is claimed that once this had happen Mr Cosser used the new employees to poach some of the a-list celebrities away from Pimlico Plumbers.
It may sound like a trivial thing to be mentioning but some of these celebrities were really famous and important and I'm sure they were spending quite a bit of money on obtaining a reliable and efficient London plumber. The list contains such names as Keira Knightley, Daniel Craig, Hugh Grant and Dame Helen Mirren.
The feud between the two London plumbers has now intensified with Pimlico plumbers now bringing a 1 million pound lawsuit against their rival firm for damages. According to Mr Mullins it was the last straw in a series of attempted moves made by the company.
"It has been going on for about two years. Then about six or eight months ago, he tried to buy us out. I said: 'There's no way. It's not for sale. It's a family business. End of story'.
"It is not about the money. I could put the money down the drain. It wouldn't bother me. But it's not good for the industry. You need to send out a message that people need to conduct themselves properly."
Hopefully the two firms can come to a settlement about the outstanding issue. Obviously every client has a option to choose who they want to perform their plumbing work in their house or flat, but if the courts decide that the loss of trade from Pimlico Plumbers and the increase in trade generated by Service Corps is substantially linked then it could be a costly move. One thing slightly odd is the list of celebrity's court in the middle of the argument. Could they be called into the debate in court? Only time will tell how things will turn out.
