The High Court has ordered Dunnes Stores to release €15 million plus accrued interest to Point Village Development Limited, finding that the developer’s receivers had met the conditions set by a 2010 settlement agreement. The court also ordered release of a further €500,000 plus interest after the defendant accepted that sum was payable.
The dispute concerned money held in a nominated account under the settlement of earlier litigation between Dunnes Stores, Point Village Development Limited and Henry A. Crosbie. The settlement tied staged payments to specified milestones. This case concerned whether conditions for the €15 million payment had been met, including a requirement to discuss the proposed tenant mix for the Centre’s ground floor before entering binding agreements for lease.
The developer’s receivers said they had complied with that discussion requirement and that binding agreements had been exchanged for at least seven designated ground-floor units, including at least four internal units. Dunnes disputed compliance. It argued that it should have received details of individual proposed tenants and that the agreements had to be with “high quality” tenants.
Justice Costello held that the settlement required discussion of the ground-floor tenant mix, but did not give Dunnes a right to approve individual tenants, demand tenant-specific information or impose a quality threshold. The receivers had made repeated offers to discuss the mix from 2014. A meeting took place on 18 July 2014, where the parties discussed tenant categories. The judge found that Dunnes did not take up later opportunities to meet or pursue its request for further information in a timely way. The receivers were therefore entitled to proceed with agreements for lease.
The judge also found that a 29 February 2016 letter from the receivers’ solicitors confirmed binding agreements for nine designated units, at least four of them internal. The settlement made that solicitors’ confirmation the trigger for payment; Dunnes could not look behind it absent fraud or manifest error. The court rejected Dunnes’ challenges to the confirmation, including arguments about later termination of agreements and a conditional agreement for Unit 23. It ruled that “tenant” carried its ordinary meaning and did not mean a tenant meeting an unstated quality standard.
The court ordered Dunnes to release the €15 million plus accrued interest forthwith. On the separate €500,000 tranche, the receivers had supplied certified evidence of compliance with relevant financial conditions. Dunnes later consented to release that sum with interest, and the judge ordered the relief sought. The ruling did not decide the separate dispute over completion of Point Square, which was the subject of other proceedings.