The High Court has granted Bank of Ireland judgment against Andrew Rispin in two loan claims, while allowing a separate claim against his co-borrower Denis Ryan to proceed to a plenary hearing.
In a judgment delivered on 21 December 2022, Mr Justice Mark Heslin ordered judgment of €366,099.40 against Rispin and Michael Hughes jointly and severally in proceedings 2017/771S. Hughes had consented to judgment for that amount, with costs and a six-month stay on execution. The court also granted judgment against Rispin for €176,504.03 in proceedings 2017/770S, brought jointly against Rispin and Ryan.
The Bank’s applications followed amendments to its summary summonses to provide further particulars of the sums claimed. The court granted those amendments and awarded the defendants the costs of those motions. It refused a request by Hughes to adjourn the summary judgment applications to another date, then considered them.
Rispin opposed both claims, saying that a payment of just over €900,000 from the sale of land for a road project had been accepted by the Bank in 2008 in full and final settlement of his liabilities. The judge found that this account was too vague and unsupported to amount to a credible defence. He pointed to a Bank letter Rispin signed in November 2010 setting out how compulsory purchase funds would be distributed, later correspondence stating that some loan balances remained due, and payments towards the loans in 2010 and 2013. The court concluded that summary judgment against Rispin was appropriate.
Ryan’s defence to the €176,504.03 claim rested on a different issue. He said that the facility letters provided for repayment from property sales and/or compulsory purchase funds, but only €29,500 of the €1.1 million gross funds was applied to the loan he shared with Rispin. The Bank argued that the wording allowed it to seek judgment. The judge held that the repayment terms raised an arguable question about whether the Bank was obliged to apply the funds to that loan, and whether it could decide how to distribute them with Rispin without Ryan’s agreement.
The court did not decide that the Bank breached the agreement or that Ryan would succeed at trial. It ruled only that it was not clear enough that Ryan had no defence to justify summary judgment. The claim against him was remitted to a plenary hearing, with directions for pleadings and discovery. The judge’s views on costs were preliminary, and the parties were invited to agree the final form of the order.