The High Court has granted a statutory charge to solicitors for QDM Capital Limited over costs awarded to the company in proceedings against New Ross Town Council, rejecting Galway City Council’s claim to priority over that money.
The dispute concerned costs being taxed in QDM’s New Ross judicial review case. Galway City Council had obtained a conditional garnishee order over those funds to pursue a separate costs award against QDM. The solicitors, Brian Lynch & Associates, applied under section 3 of the Legal Practitioners (Ireland) Act 1876 for a charge covering their costs, charges and expenses in the New Ross proceedings. QDM consented to that application.
The New Ross case had settled by consent order on 12 July 2011, which awarded costs to QDM, to be taxed if the parties could not agree. The solicitors’ bill under taxation was €40,520.67 plus VAT at 23%, and €16,617.32 in disbursements. The Taxing Master’s decision on the bill was expected on 12 March 2015; the judgment does not state its outcome or the final amount allowed.
Galway City Council had separately secured taxed costs of €113,342.80 after successfully defending two judicial reviews brought by QDM over a tender for the Leisureland complex in Salthill. Those costs remained unpaid, with interest accruing from 8 November 2013. The Council obtained its conditional garnishee order on 26 January 2015. The solicitors brought their section 3 application on 17 February.
The Council argued that its conditional order came first. The solicitors said their entitlement to seek a charge arose when QDM received its costs order in 2011. Justice Iseult O’Malley held that the solicitors’ statutory entitlement arose on 12 July 2011, before the Council obtained its own costs order against QDM on 23 January 2012.
The judge said the solicitors met the statutory requirements and had not caused culpable delay or behaved culpably in a way that would make the charge inequitable. She also found that the Council, when seeking to attach the taxed costs, was on notice of the solicitors’ entitlement and could not qualify as a purchaser for value without notice.
The court granted the section 3 declaration. It held that the earlier conditional garnishee order did not defeat the solicitors’ claim before that order was made absolute. The judgment addresses priority over the funds; it does not quantify the final solicitors’ costs or state that the Council’s separate costs award was discharged.