The High Court refused retired schoolteacher Charles O’Loughlin’s claim against estate agent Odran Young over €100,000 connected to a Hungarian property venture, finding that the money was raised by a company and paid directly to another company, not to Young by O’Loughlin personally.
In a judgment delivered on 21 February 2018, Mr Justice Max Barrett said O’Loughlin could not recover money he had neither personally possessed nor given to Young. The court refused the claim for alleged breaches of contract, duty and trust. It did not determine a separate claim by Sandbark BT, the company that raised the money.
O’Loughlin said Young offered, at a dinner in or around July 2006, to repay €200,000 after two years if O’Loughlin lent him €100,000. O’Loughlin said he raised and provided the money. Young’s account was that he facilitated O’Loughlin’s participation in a Hungarian property investment scheme, which had the potential to return up to 100% if successful but failed, resulting in a loss of investors’ principal.
O’Loughlin’s wife supported his account of the dinner conversation. A former Young employee, Mr Telek, recalled a friendly meal and understood that €200,000 might be returned if €100,000 was handed over, but said he had not followed all the details and understood the return to be a possibility. Young said he had no recollection of the meal or conversation. The judge also noted that O’Loughlin’s court pleadings described an investment arrangement, which did not fully align with his evidence that the arrangement was a loan.
The judge found that O’Loughlin’s Budapest apartment was owned by Sandbark, of which O’Loughlin was managing director. The 2007 loan and related security documents were made between Sandbark and Hungarian lender Central European Credit Ingatianhitel Zrt. The €100,000 was wired by the lender to Lindex International Ltd, not to Young.
The judgment applied the principle that a company is a separate legal entity from its members. No submission was made, and the court found no evidential basis, to treat Sandbark as identical to O’Loughlin or as his agent, or otherwise to disregard its separate legal status. The judge said Sandbark could bring its own claim if it wished; no decision on such a claim was made.