The High Court has given Edward (otherwise Laurence) McGettigan and Eileen McGettigan liberty to defend Bank of Ireland’s claim under personal guarantees. The court refused the bank’s application for summary judgment and sent the dispute to plenary hearing. It did not decide whether the guarantees can ultimately be enforced or whether the alleged assurance was made.
The bank sought €380,922 from both defendants jointly and severally, and a further €444,409 from Edward McGettigan. The claims arose from guarantees relating to loans to EL McGettigan and Sons Ltd. The company owed the bank €3,869,443.78 as of 23 October 2017, according to the judgment.
The defendants’ proposed defence is that, at a meeting on 11 June 2013, bank manager Gerry Hannan agreed the bank would not call in their personal guarantees if Edward McGettigan worked to sell company assets and repay the bank. The bank disputes that account. Hannan said he did not give such an undertaking and lacked authority to make that arrangement.
Justice Niamh Hyland said an email Hannan sent the day before the meeting and a diary entry Edward McGettigan made about it supported the defendants’ account sufficiently to prevent summary resolution. The email referred to a voluntary sale of company assets and stated that the “Letters of Guarantee” were “not called”. The diary entry recorded a proposed sale of assets, work by the defendants as “receivers in situ” and, in return, “no call in of PGS”. The judge said the email’s meaning and the conflicting accounts of the meeting required a plenary hearing.
The bank relied on later correspondence and proposals that did not clearly invoke the alleged arrangement. The judge said that evidence could support the bank’s position, including a November 2013 letter rejecting a proposal and referring to calling in guarantees. But she found the later conduct inconclusive at the summary stage. The defendants said they believed the guarantees were covered by the 2013 arrangement; the bank argued their conduct undermined that claim.
The judgment also noted that the defendants had sold properties and remitted proceeds to the bank, though the parties disputed the value of those sales. The farm at Keenaghan was sold in 2016, and €148,829.45 was forwarded to the bank. The bank said that money went to a joint loan account rather than the company loan accounts covered by the guarantees. The judge said this made it harder to show detriment in relation to those lands, but did not change her conclusion on the wider defence.
The court found a probability that the defendants had a real and bona fide defence, giving them liberty to defend the claim. Their separate request for cross-examination and discovery became redundant at this stage; the judge said discovery at the plenary hearing would remain subject to the usual tests of necessity and relevance.