The High Court varied a stay on the adjudication of John Tobin as bankrupt, allowing the Official Assignee to pursue the relief sought in two motions. The order was made on 17 May 2021, with reasons delivered by Mr Justice Humphreys on 31 May.
The Official Assignee’s February motion sought permission to proceed with applications to extend the bankruptcy and obtain a bankruptcy payment order. A second motion, filed in May, sought authority to get in and protect assets or income of the bankruptcy estate and, if necessary, to vary the stay.
Mr Tobin was adjudicated bankrupt in November 2017. The Court of Appeal later stayed the adjudication order pending further order, then varied that stay in June 2018 to require cooperation in disclosing assets and allow the Official Assignee to investigate the estate, while barring the realisation of assets or irrevocable steps. The appeal was dismissed in March 2020. A further Court of Appeal order in December 2020 stayed execution on its dismissal order.
The High Court heard that Mr Tobin had sought leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. The judgment records that his pension, worth about €67,000, was liquidated and given to his wife after the appeal was dismissed. It also records that €53,118.27 collected from debtors and tenants had been spent. The judge referred to evidence of dissipation; he did not make a separate finding in the quoted order identifying who spent that money or determining any further liability.
The judge held that a person becomes bankrupt upon adjudication and that a later stay should be understood as limiting enforcement, rather than suspending the status of bankruptcy. He interpreted the earlier Court of Appeal orders as leaving the High Court with jurisdiction to vary the stay. Alternatively, he said he could reconsider it urgently under the Rules of the Superior Courts in light of the new information about asset dissipation.
The resulting order varied the stay as sought in both motions, relying on the June 2018 Court of Appeal order or, alternatively, Order 86, Rule 7 of the Rules of the Superior Courts. The order did not itself grant the bankruptcy extension or payment order sought in the February motion; it permitted the Official Assignee to pursue the relief set out in the motions. The court granted liberty to apply.