The Court of Appeal has directed that a motion seeking security for costs from Used Car Imports of Ireland Limited be heard by a three-judge panel alongside a related appeal concerning a former director’s potential liability for costs.
In a judgment delivered on 7 July 2016, President Ryan said the two matters should be heard simultaneously or successively, before the company’s substantive appeal against the dismissal of its claim. He did not decide the security-for-costs application or the related appeal.
The company’s case began with a plenary summons in March 1995 and challenged the Vehicle Registration Tax system introduced in Ireland in 1993. After a 33-day High Court hearing between March and June 2012, Murphy J dismissed the claim in March 2013 and ordered the company to pay the defendants’ costs. The judgment on the present motion says those costs remained unpaid.
The company appealed. The defendants—the Minister for Finance, the Revenue Commissioners, Ireland and the Attorney General—then sought an order requiring the company to provide security for their costs of the appeal. The company accepted that the defendants had made a prima facie case for security, but argued that special circumstances justified refusing the order. Its stated grounds included that Revenue had caused its inability to pay, that significant issues were not addressed by the trial judge, delay in bringing the motion, and the exceptional public importance of the case.
The motion was heard by President Ryan sitting alone, with written and oral submissions. While preparing his judgment, he considered a separate appeal by the defendants against a High Court decision refusing to make former company director Mr. O’Dowling personally liable for costs incurred in defending the company’s claim. The source identifies Mr. O’Dowling as having testified that he funded the action.
President Ryan said hearing one costs matter before a single judge and the closely related matter before three judges could be inconsistent. He also considered that ordering security might require Mr. O’Dowling to use his own resources to fund the company’s appeal while he faced the separate appeal over personal liability for High Court costs. He described having the same three-judge court hear both matters as better securing procedural fairness, without compromising efficiency.
The order was to list the security motion with the appeal against the judgment of Gilligan J., for hearing before the substantive appeal against the dismissal of the company’s claim. The judgment records a procedural direction only; the security application’s merits remained undecided.