The High Court has refused Rowan Asset Management Ltd.’s application to set aside an order renewing a summons in a dispute over investments in Rowan UK Commercial Property Funds 3 and 4. The ruling leaves the renewal order in place; it does not decide the underlying claims or the company’s jurisdiction and limitation defences.
John Pugh and Rory Harte’s proceedings seek documents about money invested in the funds and damages for alleged misrepresentation, breach of contract, negligence and other alleged breaches. The judgment says a pension investment product was said to have lost half its value within six years. Proceedings against the fifth defendant, Peter Dunne practising as Peter Dunne and Company, had been discontinued.
The summons was issued on 20 October 2014. It gave a Dublin address belonging to Rowan Europe Asset Management Ltd., a subsidiary, rather than Rowan Asset Management’s registered office in London. The plaintiffs’ solicitor said a Companies Registration Office search had led to the address being entered by mistake.
Rowan Europe wrote in November 2015 and again in March 2016 to say its parent was domiciled in England, had no Dublin office at the address used, and had no involvement in the dispute. The solicitor said the first letter was misfiled. The court found that, once the error was realised, the solicitor acted promptly to seek renewal and permission to serve a concurrent summons. It also noted that correspondence sent to Rowan Asset Management’s London office had made the company aware of the intended proceedings and the Dublin High Court case.
The company argued that renewal could deprive it of a limitation defence, saying the dispute concerned investments made in 2007 and 2008. The court said the pleadings were at an early stage and the evidence did not clearly establish when the claims accrued or whether later events in the fund’s administration could affect a limitation defence. It said a defence concerning the initial 2008 investment remained open. The application concerned whether the renewal order should stand, and the court confined its decision to the affidavits and exhibits before it.
Applying the test of good reason and the interests of justice, the court found that reasonable but unsuccessful service efforts had been made and that the evidence did not show prejudice sufficient to justify setting the order aside. The application was refused.