The High Court dismissed most of John Healy’s claims against the Irish Life Staff Benefits Scheme and Irish Life Assurance plc, finding that they would interfere with bankruptcy proceedings in the UK. It left a narrower claim about the pension scheme’s UK tax approval in place for the time being, while holding over the defendants’ applications to strike out the proceedings and the claim for medical records.
Healy became a deferred member of the Irish Life Staff Benefits Scheme after leaving Irish Life Assurance in 2011. He was adjudicated bankrupt by the High Court in Manchester in 2013 and discharged in 2014. The judgment records that his assets in bankruptcy remained vested in a UK trustee in bankruptcy, who claimed rights to his pension benefits. A UK court refused Healy’s application to exclude the pension from his bankruptcy estate in 2017; an oral reconsideration of his application for leave to appeal was listed for February 2018.
Healy argued that the pension should be excluded from the UK bankruptcy estate and complained that the new scheme lacked an approval he said the former scheme had from UK tax authorities. He also sought orders stopping payments or correspondence with the trustee, funding for legal representation in the UK, pension payments, compensation and access to records.
Justice Donnelly held that questions about the assets in the bankruptcy estate, including whether the pension was excluded, belonged to the UK bankruptcy proceedings. The Irish court had to recognise those proceedings and could not scrutinise or interfere with them. On that basis, it dismissed the claims that challenged the UK process, including claims for payments from the scheme, UK legal costs and related records. It also refused interim injunctive relief on the claims that remained potentially arguable, finding Healy had not met the standard for a mandatory injunction.
The judge treated one part of Healy’s claim differently: whether the defendants were required to ensure that the new scheme’s terms were no less favourable than those of the former scheme, including by seeking UK approval. She said that claim, and a damages claim only insofar as it arose from that alleged obligation, could be considered in Ireland because it did not interfere with the UK proceedings. The court did not decide whether the defendants had such an obligation or whether the scheme should receive approval.
The defendants’ applications to strike out the proceedings were held over so Healy could consider clarifying his pleadings. The claim for medical records also remained outstanding, with the strike-out application concerning it deferred. The judgment was delivered on 26 January 2018.