The Barclay brothers blocked crucial redevelopment work on two iconic London hotels in a bid to frustrate a minority shareholder to prove he no longer had operational control, a court heard.

Frederick and David Barclay had taken a controlling interest in the £1 billion company that owns Claridge’s, the Berkeley and the Connaught.

Paddy McKillen, who owns 36 per cent of the company, claimed the prominent businessmen instructed their agent to “deliberately block crucial redevelopment work crucial to maintaining Claridges's competitive edge” to prove a personal point against him, a rival shareholder.

Mr McKillen has claimed the Barclays have acted in ways that was “prejudicial to his interest as a shareholder" in Coroin, a company he helped establish in 2004 to buy the prestigious hotels.

The Belfast-born property investor claims fellow Coroin shareholder, financier Derek Quinlan, breached the shareholders 2004 agreement tosell his shares to the twin brothers last year. He also claims another company called Misland breached the agreement by selling the brothers his shares without first offering them to him.

In his witness statement Mr McKillen said the brothers' appointed directors in Coroin, Richard Faber, Michael Seal and Rigel Mowatt, blocked the “vital” work of building a pool and spa in Claridges' basement and work to the Berkeley’s façade in a bid to exert control over the company.

Mr McKillen said he planned to start both jobs by September 2011 so the early stages would be finished in time for the London 2012 Olympics this summer.

“My concern is that Mr Faber, Mr Seal and Mr Mowatt are attempting to block the redevelopment to frustrate me personally and to make it clear that I do not have operational control and the steps that I would like to take are not going to happen while I am around," he said.

“However this approach is not in the company’s best interests since it damages Claridge’s competitive advantage and makes it increasingly more difficult to renew the planning permissions which must be renewed on a rolling basis.”

Mr McKillen said the £15 million funds for the first stage of the redevelopment were in the hotels bank accounts and would not require extra funding.

But under cross examination from the trio’s barrister Joe Smouha QC, Mr McKillen admitted the projects had not been discussed at board meeting after April 2011.

“By that stage the Barclay brothers had stopped this project, these vital and necessary projects for the hotels survival," Mr McKillen said. “We had a full development meeting with Mr Faber and Aidan Barclay (David Barclay's son) where the architects went through the development plans for the hotels.

“I thought they were very positive at the meeting, it was video presentation that went through all the different projects and the costing of the projects.

“At the end I thought they were happy to go ahead with it. But later I heard Mr Faber had a meeting with the Barclay brothers and they decided to block this crucial work.”

Mr Smouha said at the stage in 2011 Mr McKillen was more interested in arranging a project management fee for him to oversee the project rather than seeing the redevelopment started.

Mr McKillen said: “That’s not true. I was never paid by the company.”

The hearing continue.