The High Court awarded LSREF III Stone Investments Limited judgment for €30,180,489 against John Morrissey after finding that the loan and the right to pursue repayment had been validly assigned to the company.
In a judgment delivered on 5 October 2015, Ms Justice Costello ruled that a 2014 deed transferred the loan facilities from Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (In Special Liquidation) to LSREF III Stone Investments Limited. She also found that Morrissey had received valid written notice of the assignment before the company was substituted as plaintiff in the proceedings.
The case followed earlier rulings in a modular trial. Those rulings had determined that Anglo Irish Bank Corporation advanced the loans, was entitled to call them in, and that no fiduciary relationship existed between the bank and Morrissey. His counterclaim had been dismissed. In June 2014, Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan assessed the amount due at €31,542,125.93, subject to credit for receipts from a receiver appointed over properties connected with the facilities.
The remaining issues before Ms Justice Costello were whether the assignment was effective and what further credit should be allowed. Morrissey challenged the deed and the assignment notice, including the notice’s blank transfer-date field and the way the documents were served. The judge rejected those objections. She relied on the loan terms, which expressly allowed assignment, and on the deed and correspondence showing the transfer and notifying Morrissey. She held that the statutory requirements for assignment under the Supreme Court of Judicature (Ireland) Act 1877 had been met.
The judgment records that the receiver’s account had a closing balance of €27,138 as of 13 July 2015. The plaintiff also waived interest on the amount due from 4 June 2015 until judgment. The court entered judgment for €30,180,489.
The court did not decide the constitutional challenge to section 12 of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation Act 2013. That challenge was to continue in separate plenary proceedings, and the plaintiff had undertaken not to enforce this judgment until the issue was determined if the judgment depended on that section. Ms Justice Costello said the judgment instead rested on the assignment and did not rely on section 12. She also refused a request to refer questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union, finding that the State aid argument raised for that request was outside the issues properly before the court.