The Supreme Court has held that a Polish judgment worth approximately €6.37 million in favour of Irish company Coucal Limited is entitled to recognition in Ireland, rejecting Michael Scully’s remaining objection based on judicial independence in Poland.
Mr Justice Gerard Hogan delivered judgment on 27 November 2025 in the second Supreme Court ruling arising from the dispute.
Coucal was established by investors who had put money into a shopping-centre project in Opole, Poland. The company later pursued claims assigned to it by investors against Scully. In June 2021, the Polish Court of Appeal awarded Coucal PLN 28,391,106 after concluding that Scully had wrongfully and without authority entered agreements on investors’ behalf.
Scully resisted recognition of that judgment in Ireland. One argument, concerning the assignment of investors’ claims to Coucal, had already been rejected by the Supreme Court in May 2025.
The remaining issue concerned Judge Anna Strączyńska, who sat on the Polish appeal panel after being temporarily seconded from a lower court by the Polish Minister for Justice.
Scully argued that the secondment system was incompatible with EU requirements of judicial independence and that recognition of the resulting judgment would therefore be manifestly contrary to Irish public policy.
Hogan J rejected that submission. He distinguished EU case law concerning seconded judges in criminal proceedings, where Poland’s Minister for Justice also exercises prosecutorial powers, from this civil dispute between private parties.
The judge also relied on more recent Court of Justice authority confirming that temporary judicial assignments are not inherently incompatible with EU law. Judge Strączyńska had been randomly allocated to the appeal panel, and there was no suggestion that the Polish state had manipulated her presence or that Scully suffered any specific disadvantage.
Hogan J concluded that the Polish judgment was entitled to recognition under the Brussels I recast regulation. He also considered the EU-law point sufficiently clear that no further reference to the Court of Justice was required.