The High Court has set aside service of proceedings on four European Union financial bodies and dismissed a related claim against the Central Bank of Ireland, ruling that the claims could not proceed in the Irish court.
Jerry Beades sought orders requiring European and national financial regulators to investigate banks’ involvement in the oil industry, sanction institutions involved in alleged oil-price manipulation, direct banks to divest oil-related assets, and regulate the European banking system. He said the proceedings aimed to address regulatory risks linked to banks’ exposure to the oil sector.
The European Banking Authority, European Securities and Markets Authority, European Systemic Risk Board and European Central Bank applied to set aside service of the plenary summons. The court held that claims requiring review of acts or failures to act by the EU bodies fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union. It also found that the Brussels Regulation did not apply because the proceedings were administrative, and that the summons did not identify an applicable provision giving the Irish court jurisdiction.
The court declined Beades’s request to refer a question to the EU court. It ordered service of the summons on the four bodies set aside. The order addressed service on those defendants; it did not determine the merits of the allegations about banks or oil-price manipulation.
The Central Bank of Ireland separately sought to strike out the proceedings against it. The judge found the requested injunctions and declarations too broad and vague for the defendants to know what compliance would require. She also concluded that the claims concerned regulatory matters within the EU banking framework, that Beades had not first set out specific complaints to the Bank and asked it to address them, and that the case against the Bank was bound to fail. The judge said Beades would not have met the threshold for leave to bring judicial review.
The court dismissed the proceedings against the Central Bank under Order 19, rule 28 of the Rules of the Superior Courts. It declined to dismiss them under its inherent jurisdiction. This judgment dealt with the applications concerning the four EU bodies and the Central Bank; it did not determine the separate strike-out application brought in related proceedings against Governor Lane.