ER Travel Ltd. must provide €170,000 as security for Dublin Airport Authority’s costs in defending the company’s proceedings, the High Court has ruled. The order concerns the costs of the case; it does not decide ER’s underlying claims against the DAA.
ER provides car rental services and says it operates a model in which customers arriving at Dublin Airport are transferred by shuttle to an off-airport car park. The DAA considered that ER’s buses collecting customers at the airport breached airport bye-laws requiring permission for business activities there. A dispute continued from 2016 to 2019.
In proceedings issued in April 2019, ER sought declarations that the DAA had acted beyond its powers, breached the bye-laws and competition law, and unlawfully restricted passengers’ use of airport facilities. Those are claims made by ER; the judgment on security for costs did not determine them.
The DAA applied under section 52 of the Companies Act 2014 for security for its defence costs. ER accepted that the DAA had established a prima facie defence and that ER would be unable to pay the DAA’s costs if the proceedings failed. ER argued that the court should nevertheless use its discretion not to order security, including because a successful case could benefit consumers seeking cheaper car hire.
The court accepted that a successful outcome might conceivably benefit future customers, but said the case had been brought by ER for its private benefit. It did not consider that the prospect of cheaper car rental at Dublin Airport amounted at that stage to a matter of national importance or great public concern of the kind relevant to the application.
ER also relied on the DAA’s failure to prosecute an alleged bye-law breach and the absence of confirmation about a licensed bus provider transferring ER customers from the airport. The judge said the District Court could not determine whether the bye-laws were beyond the DAA’s powers or decide the competition-law issues. Whether ER’s current arrangement with the bus provider complied with the law was for ER to assess in the first instance; any alleged illegality could be tested in an appropriate forum.
The DAA submitted an unchallenged estimate of €507,400 in costs for a full hearing, including an estimated seven-day trial. The court ordered security of €170,000, roughly one-third of that estimate. The ruling addresses security for costs only; the source does not record a decision on the substantive proceedings.