The High Court has substituted Michael Ian Larkin for Christopher D. Lehane as applicant in proceedings concerning the bankruptcy of Michael Wymes. It adjourned the Official Assignee’s request for a substantive extension of the bankruptcy, which already had an interim extension in place.
In a judgment delivered on 2 July 2021, Mr Justice Humphreys said the substitution was necessary to allow the proceedings to continue after Mr Lehane retired as Official Assignee in July 2020 and Mr Larkin was appointed to the office in November 2020. The court made the substitution order on 16 June 2021 under Order 17, rule 4 of the Rules of the Superior Courts.
Mr Wymes objected that the Official Assignee was not a corporation sole and therefore had no succession rights. He also questioned whether Mr Larkin had been properly appointed, arguing there was no evidence of an appointment by the Minister for Justice.
The judge said substitution applications are assessed on a prima facie basis and are not intended to become a trial of the underlying dispute. He found that Mr Larkin’s affidavit provided prima facie proof of his appointment for the purpose of the application. The judge rejected the argument that Mr Wymes’s concerns prevented substitution, while noting that he could investigate the appointment through correspondence, a Freedom of Information request or other means.
The separate motion to extend the bankruptcy substantively arose from an application brought by the Official Assignee in 2019. The court did not decide that request. It adjourned it with liberty to apply after the Supreme Court’s judgment on Mr Wymes’s appeal concerning the earlier dismissal of his application to challenge the bankruptcy adjudication, or for another reason.
The judgment records that Mr Wymes was adjudicated bankrupt in March 2018. His application to show cause against the validity of that adjudication was rejected by the High Court in 2019, and his appeal was rejected by the Court of Appeal in 2020. The Supreme Court granted him leave to appeal in January 2021. The High Court’s order addressed the applicant’s substitution and the timing of the substantive extension motion; it did not determine the pending Supreme Court appeal.