The Court of Appeal has dismissed Paul O’Shea’s appeal against the High Court’s refusal to annul his bankruptcy adjudication. The appeal concerned a rehearing of his application to show cause under section 16 of the Bankruptcy Act 1988; it was not an appeal against the original judgment debt or the bankruptcy adjudication itself.
The court said the issue remitted to the High Court in 2018 was whether bank statements that appeared to record payments into O’Shea’s account after judgment had been entered were payments against the debt. The High Court had accepted the bank’s explanation that the entries reflected internal transfers consolidating balances from seven loan facilities, together with accounting adjustments, rather than money received from O’Shea or a third party.
The bank’s evidence was that the judgment sum of €1,296,114.47 remained unpaid. It said a corrected version of a statement dated 16 October 2013 reflected the judgment sum after an earlier version omitted a €305.70 transaction. The High Court accepted that explanation and found the debt was a liquidated sum for the purposes of the bankruptcy legislation.
In the appeal, O’Shea argued that the bank’s statements were unclear and its evidence was defective, and disputed the amount claimed. The Court of Appeal said the original summary judgment and its calculation could not be challenged in these proceedings. It also ruled that service of the bankruptcy summons and the 2016 adjudication were outside the scope of the remitted section 16 application. The adjudication remained in place during the earlier appeal and was not challenged there.
The Court of Appeal held that the High Court had addressed the concern about the apparent payment entries, considered the bank’s additional affidavit evidence and was entitled to accept its explanation. It found no basis to disturb the High Court’s factual findings and agreed that O’Shea had not shown statutory or equitable grounds to annul the adjudication. The appeal was dismissed.