Feb. 09, 2011--The legal skirmish between the owner of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel property here and the luxury chain that manages the hotel has been resolved.

A lawsuit over millions of dollars in fees between Maritz, Wolff & Co., which owns the Ritz property at 100 Carondelet Plaza in Clayton, and Maryland-based Ritz-Carlton, which manages it, has been settled, and both sides are paying their own legal fees in the case. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

Last fall, Maritz, Wolff threatened to cancel a management agreement with Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., and Ritz-Carlton filed a lawsuit in St. Louis County Circuit Court in October to stop this from happening.

Maritz, Wolff, which has offices in Clayton and Los Angeles, owns 18 hotels in North America, and it has an agreement in which the Ritz-Carlton chain runs the luxury hotel in Clayton.

The Clayton Ritz did not meet a minimum $4 million in annual profit from 2008 to 2010, and the lawsuit centered on different interpretations of contract language regarding fees due to Maritz, Wolff if the minimum profits were not reached.

Both parties now say they have resolved the dispute.

"The issue is now behind us, and we look forward to Ritz-Carlton's continued management of the hotel into the future," said Tom Marder, a spokesman from Marriott International, which owns the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co.

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