PARTNERSHIP ; ;Parties setting up restaurant business together premises purchased and converted but relationship terminated before restaurant open for trade partnership created ;Khan and another v Miah and others: HL (Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Steyn, Lord Hoffmann, Lord Clyde and Lord Millett): 2 November 2000 ;The defendants wished to open their own restaurant and approached the second claimant as a possible investor. ;They agreed to find suitable premises, convert them and then run the restaurant. The second claimant was to provide most of the initial capital, and the defendants and first claimant were to run the restaurant. After premises had been purchased and fitted out, but before the restaurant had opened, the relationship between the parties broke down. The defendants opened the restaurant and continued to run it in business together. There was no settling of accounts with the second claimant. The judge held that there had been a partnership between the parties when the relationship broke down and that the second claimant was entitled to 50% of it. The Court of Appeal held [1998] 1 WLR 477, reversing his decision, that the parties had agreed to carry on a restaurant business together but would not have become partners until actual trading commenced. The second claimant appealed. ;Nicholas Yell (instructed by Trevor Jenkin Solicitors, Reading) for the second claimant. Edward Davidson QC and Robert Arnold (instructed by Saf Awan, Luton) for the first defendant. The second and third defendants in person. ;Held, allowing the appeal, that there was no rule of law that parties to a joint venture did not become partners until actual trading commenced; that the rule was that persons who agreed to carry on a business activity as a joint venture did not become partners until they actually embarked on the activity on which they had agreed and transacted any business of the joint venture; that the parties had agreed to find suitable premises, fit them out as a restaurant and run the restaurant once they had set up; that, consequently, the acquisition, conversion and fitting out of the premises were all part of the joint venture, undertaken with a view of ultimate profit, and formed part of the business which the parties had agreed to carry on in partnership together; and that, accordingly, the parties had been in partnership together at the time that the relationship had broken down. (WLR) ; ; ;