The High Court stayed bankruptcy proceedings in Ireland after concluding that the creditor’s complaints about a Northern Ireland bankruptcy order did not meet the exceptional threshold for refusing recognition on public policy grounds.
In a judgment delivered on 13 December 2011, Ms Justice Dunne adjourned the Irish proceedings generally, with liberty to re-enter, to permit Emo Oil Limited, if it chose, to apply to the High Court of Northern Ireland to set aside the order made there. The court did not itself set aside that order or make a final determination on the creditor’s proposed application.
Emo Oil had obtained judgment against Eamonn Mulligan for €235,001.68 in February 2009, over money due for fuel and oil supplied for sale at his petrol station. Irish bankruptcy proceedings followed. In July 2010, while those proceedings were ongoing, Mulligan’s solicitors told the creditor that he had been adjudicated bankrupt in Northern Ireland.
In an earlier judgment, delivered on 29 November 2010, the High Court had concluded that the Irish proceedings did not constitute the “opening” of proceedings under the EU Insolvency Regulation, and that Mulligan’s centre of main interests was in Ireland. It had then considered recognition of the Northern Ireland adjudication inappropriate in the circumstances, and invited further submissions on what should happen next.
The debtor’s counsel subsequently argued that the Northern Ireland order should be recognised and the Irish proceedings stayed. The court considered the Regulation’s general rule of recognition and its exception allowing refusal where recognition would be manifestly contrary to public policy. It said refusal would generally arise only in exceptional circumstances involving a fundamental right, such as the right to a fair trial.
The creditor complained that it had not been represented or informed of the intended application in Northern Ireland. The judge noted there was nothing before her suggesting the creditor could not apply there to have the bankruptcy order set aside. She concluded that the complaints did not establish a breach of a fundamental right that would justify refusing recognition.
The court also considered the complaint of forum shopping, but said that issue concerned where the debtor’s centre of main interests was located and did not itself provide grounds to refuse recognition on public policy grounds. The order was to stay the Irish proceedings and adjourn them generally, allowing the creditor to seek relief in Northern Ireland and to re-enter the Irish case. The judgment does not state whether such an application was later made or its outcome.