The High Court has awarded Thomas Naughton the costs of an injunction motion and related action after finding, on the balance of probabilities, that a receiver was not the Bank of Ireland’s agent when the proceedings began in July 2024.
Ms Justice Stack delivered the judgment on 4 March 2025. The injunction application had become moot after the bank appointed the receiver, James Anderson, as its agent from 20 November 2024, giving him authority to market the properties and enter sale contracts on the bank’s behalf. The court said the bank had not itself been restrained from selling.
Naughton had sought an urgent order before an online auction scheduled for 24 July 2024. The order granted that day prevented Anderson from being named as vendor in a contract for two properties in County Galway. It expired on 30 September 2024. The judgment does not state what happened on or after that date.
The central issue in the costs application was whether Anderson already had agency authority in July. The defendants argued that he did, that damages were an adequate remedy and that Naughton had delayed until the last possible day to frustrate the auction. The judge found the contemporaneous documents supported the plaintiff’s position: the draft sale contract and Anderson’s letters described him as acting as receiver, with no reference to agency. The judge found Anderson’s affidavit claims of an earlier verbal agency arrangement contradictory and unsupported by details or corroborating evidence.
The judge concluded that the injunction proceedings became moot because the defendants later appointed Anderson as agent. She held that Naughton was entitled to the costs of the motion. She rejected delay as a reason to deny costs, noting that the order was narrowly framed and did not prevent the bank from exercising its own power of sale.
The court also addressed the separate action, which included a claim for trespass. The judge said the evidence made it difficult to avoid the conclusion that Anderson entered the property for several days in October 2023 without a right to possession. She noted that the action was not moot because the court could award damages for historic trespass, although Naughton appeared not to intend to proceed to trial. On that basis, the judge awarded him the costs of the action too, while observing that they were unlikely to be substantial because no statement of claim had been delivered.
The order concerned costs only. The judgment did not determine the trespass claim at trial or award damages for it.