The High Court adjudicated Patrick McLaughlin and Roseann McLaughlin bankrupt on 11 February 2021, after dismissing their applications to set aside bankruptcy summonses. It also substituted Pepper Finance Corporation (Ireland) DAC as plaintiff in the debt proceedings and as petitioner in both bankruptcy matters.
The decision followed a €4,022,734.92 judgment entered against the McLaughlins in 2013 over loan agreements with Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Ltd. The Supreme Court dismissed their appeal in 2015. After the loans were transferred to Ennis Property Finance, the debtors brought separate proceedings against Ennis in 2016 seeking 93 forms of relief. Two motions in those proceedings remained pending.
Ennis was substituted into the judgment proceedings in 2018. It then made statutory demands for €2,006,898.01. After those demands went unpaid, bankruptcy summonses were issued in November 2018, and petitions were presented in March 2019.
The petitions had already been adjourned three times. In December 2019, a Circuit Court judge granted the debtors a protective certificate on the basis of an undertaking that the 2016 proceedings would be discontinued. The High Court judgment says those proceedings were not discontinued. It also records that the debtors acknowledged the debt in financial statements for the personal insolvency process.
At the February 2021 hearing, the judge declined a further adjournment. He cited the history of delays, the debtors’ failure to appear at the start of the hearing, and insufficient evidence that they had a substantive point to raise. Roseann McLaughlin did not appear during the matter. Patrick McLaughlin joined the remote hearing later that day.
The judge ruled that Patrick McLaughlin could not reopen the debt question through the applications to set aside the summonses, having sworn to the debt in the personal insolvency process. He found that no valid issue for trial had been identified and dismissed both applications. After hearing further submissions, he said the criteria for bankruptcy orders were met and the balance of justice favoured making them.
The court granted Pepper Finance leave to issue execution in the debt proceedings and dispensed with re-service. It made no order as to costs on the substitution motions; costs of the bankruptcy orders were to be costs in the bankruptcy.