Gordon Ramsay Just Scored A Major Legal Win

Gordon Ramsay's legal beef (no pun intended) with former business partner Rowen Seibel is finally over.

The two former collaborators opened a restaurant called The Fat Cow in Los Angeles in 2012, but it shut down two years later, and according to an employee, it's not because the business tanked, but because they were embroiled in a trademark issue with an establishment in Miami that had the same name in Spanish (Las Vacas Gordas), per Eater. They were forced to either change the name or shut down entirely. Seibel then sued Ramsay for $10 million, alleging that the "Hell's Kitchen" star knew the trademark problem from the get-go but proceeded to launch the restaurant anyway. He also claimed Ramsay was some sort of "dictator" in terms of handling the business. "Ramsay attempted to run the business and make decisions on behalf of (his partners) similar to his television personality on Hell's Kitchen — as a dictatorship," Seibel's lawyer, Paul Sweeney, wrote in court papers, per the New York Daily News.

Ramsay's team refuted Seibel's accusations, saying that it was Seibel who was in charge of managing the daily operations of the restaurant, which led to "a string of financial and legal issues." When Ramsay's camp tried to sort the mess, Seibel apparently "refused to engage in any meaningful conversations," prompting Ramsay to close it entirely. Now, eight years later, there's finally a verdict as to who was ultimately responsible for the demise of their joint venture.

According to the New York Superior Court, Rowen Seibel was "not a credible witness." Page Six reports that judge Melissa Crane sided with Gordon Ramsay, ordering Seibel to cough up $1.6 million in damages, along with 50-70% of Ramsay's legal fees, totaling roughly $4.5 million.

A spokesperson for the celebrity chef told the outlet that the court found that Seibel "fabricated evidence" regarding "kickbacks," likely to cover up for the fact that he was "incompetent in managing" the business. They also said that Ramsay had cut ties with Seibel upon finding out the truth, and was not "surprised by the ruling."

It's worth noting that Ramsay is no stranger to lawsuits, and this is not the first case that involved The Fat Cow. In 2013, ABC News reported that four former employees filed a class-action lawsuit for unpaid wages. They claimed they were forced to work 8-hour shifts without a break, sometimes below minimum age, and weren't even granted any overtime pay. "There were handwritten paychecks sometimes. There was... no accounting at all," the attorney who represented the employees said. However, it's unclear whether or not Ramsay was to blame. A former hostess of the restaurant said that issues like these hardly ever reached him. "Nothing was ever told to him," she said. "We couldn't tell him anything. He could not know anything."