The High Court has lifted the in camera rule over specified material from protected family-law proceedings so it can be used in an investigation connected with a US bankruptcy. The disclosure is limited: sensitive non-commercial material must be redacted, and the documents may be used only for investigative purposes if the US Bankruptcy Court authorises that use. The Irish court said the material must not be publicly disseminated through the US creditors’ meeting process.
In a judgment delivered on 6 December 2013, Mr Justice Henry Abbott granted the application brought by two applicants, including NAMA, in proceedings involving anonymised parties identified as J.D. and S.D. The court said it was deciding whether confidentiality could be lifted for the disclosure sought in the amended notice of motion, not determining the underlying matrimonial proceedings or the US bankruptcy.
The first applicant had filed for bankruptcy in the United States in March 2013. The judgment records that an Irish summary judgment for €185,299,627.78 had been entered against that applicant in favour of a NAMA group entity, and that the applicant was adjudicated bankrupt in Ireland in July 2013. A challenge to that Irish adjudication had not yet been decided. The US court lifted its automatic stay to allow NAMA and the group entity to pursue this Irish application.
NAMA submitted that disclosure was needed to give it, the US trustee and the Irish official assignee a fuller account of the applicant’s assets and liabilities, including possible transfers and assets relevant to the creditors. The judgment says the US trustee supported the application. Justice Abbott found that the court could lift the confidentiality rule under section 40(8) of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 and through a surviving common-law power, and that third parties could apply to enable the court to act on its own motion.
The judge also found that the applicant had concealed assets, intentionally or unintentionally, and had failed to clarify the status of “wife No. 2” and her relationship to assets and transactions. Those are findings recorded in this judgment; the court did not decide ownership of particular assets in the order described.
The judge accepted NAMA’s undertaking to pay S.D.’s costs of the application and related work selecting and approving disclosure. He indicated that NAMA should also pay the first applicant’s reasonable costs for selection and redaction, subject to further submissions. The court had not yet settled the form of order or resolved those further costs issues.