The High Court dismissed businessman Conor Cagney’s claim against First Active plc over money placed in accounts in 1995, finding that the £100,000 at the centre of the dispute was invested through an account in his friend Tony Sheridan’s name, rather than deposited with the bank for Cagney and his daughters.
Mr Justice Charleton rejected Cagney’s allegation that the bank and Sheridan had acted together to deprive him of the money. He also dismissed the bank’s claim against Sheridan. The judge said he would hear submissions on costs; the judgment did not determine costs.
The dispute concerned funds Cagney had available in May 1995, including proceeds from an encashed Norwich Union policy and a cheque from Lombard and Ulster Banking. He claimed he instructed the then First National Building Society to place IR£141,161.48 in an account in his name and those of his two daughters, repayable on demand. The account records instead showed IR£41,161.48 in an account for Cagney and one daughter, and IR£100,000 in an account in Sheridan’s name.
Cagney alleged that the accounts and a later account opened with proceeds from share sales were created fraudulently, and that he had not authorised the transactions. The bank denied wrongdoing. It said the £100,000 had been placed in Sheridan’s account on Cagney’s instructions and sought an indemnity from Sheridan if the bank were held liable.
The judge accepted branch manager Declan McCann’s account of the relevant meetings and found Cagney’s evidence unreliable on the account openings and the share sale. He found Sheridan’s testimony not credible, but concluded that Cagney had made an informal investment of IR£100,000 with Sheridan. The judge rejected Sheridan’s account that the money funded a designer-jeans venture and found that Sheridan had retained most of it. He said the court could not determine what return or security had been agreed because neither man had given the full account of their dealings.
The judge said the case Cagney had pleaded was that the bank had disobeyed his instructions for a banking investment. The facts he found instead concerned an investment through Sheridan, and Cagney had not pleaded a claim against Sheridan for taking and failing to repay the money. The court could not rewrite the case to grant a remedy on that different basis.
The judgment dismissed Cagney’s action against First Active and the bank’s third-party claim against Sheridan. The court’s finding about the investment did not result in an order requiring Sheridan to repay it.