Tanager Designated Activity Company must pay Ronan Ryan’s costs of proceedings over an application to enforce against his family home, the High Court has ruled. The costs order covers the Circuit Court proceedings, the appeal, related High Court applications in August and September, and the hearing on costs.
Mr Justice Garrett Simons delivered the supplemental costs judgment on 25 October 2019. Ryan had succeeded in an appeal against a Circuit Court order of 15 August 2019 granting Tanager leave to execute a possession order despite a protective certificate under the Personal Insolvency Act 2012. The High Court set aside that Circuit Court order. The appeal addressed in this supplemental judgment concerned Tanager’s application under section 96 of the Act; a separate appeal concerning section 97 was pending in the High Court Personal Insolvency List.
Tanager argued that each party should bear its own costs. Its submissions included that the appeal was a test case, that the special costs rule in section 97(4) should apply by analogy, and that Ryan’s mortgage arrears and a finding in the principal judgment that he breached his disclosure duty under section 118 should affect the costs decision.
The judge rejected those arguments. He said the appeal involved private parties and raised no public interest reason to depart from the ordinary rule that costs follow the event. Section 96 did not contain the special costs provision found in section 97(4), and the court held that the latter did not apply to this section 96 appeal. Ryan’s indebtedness to Tanager did not remove his entitlement to costs after succeeding in the proceedings.
The judge also considered the section 118 disclosure breach but found insufficient connection between it and the appeal to justify reducing Ryan’s costs. He said the non-disclosure had not caused unnecessary additional costs in the appeal.
The judgment criticised Tanager’s approach to a stay of the Circuit Court order. The judge said a more reasonable approach could have avoided an urgent High Court application in August and allowed the appeal to be managed alongside the section 97 appeal. He said this conduct would have tipped the balance toward an order against Tanager even if the ordinary costs rule had not already justified one.
The court directed Tanager to pay Ryan’s costs relating to the section 96 application, including the costs of the Circuit Court and High Court appeal, August and September applications, reserved costs, and the costs hearing on 15 October 2019. The order also covers written legal submissions filed in September 2019, and a certificate for counsel was granted.