The High Court recognised a final Spanish mortgage-foreclosure judgment concerning a villa in Marbella and dismissed an Irish action brought by its owner against OCM EMRU Debtco DAC. The court held that it had no jurisdiction to determine a challenge to OCM’s security over the property or a claim for damages arising from its sale. It also dismissed the owner’s motion for an injunction to prevent the sale.
Mr Justice Allen delivered the judgment on 2 October 2020. The property, called Calle Wagner, was bought by Joe Donovan in 2006 for about €3 million using money borrowed from Anglo Irish Bank. OCM later asserted that the mortgage loan had been transferred to it and that €3,557,358.17 remained due as of 15 January 2018. That balance was OCM’s claim, not a finding by the Irish court.
OCM began foreclosure proceedings in Marbella in April 2018. Donovan appeared through a Spanish lawyer, but the proceedings were not contested. The judgment records that the lawyer allegedly failed to file procedural paperwork in time. On 16 July 2020, the Spanish court confirmed an auction decree as final. Allen noted that Donovan’s case in Ireland proceeded on the basis that the Spanish order could not be overturned.
Donovan’s Irish action, begun in September 2020, sought to restrain the sale, have the security declared invalid and recover damages. He alleged that the power of attorney given to his Spanish lawyer did not authorise a mortgage, that his signature on a later document confirming authority was forged, and that the loan had been redeemed in 2007. He had also brought criminal proceedings in Spain concerning the mortgage’s execution. The High Court did not decide those allegations on their merits.
OCM argued that the Spanish judgment had to be recognised under the Brussels I Regulation (recast), and that the Irish court could not review its substance. Allen agreed. He found that the Irish action’s object was to stop the sale ordered by the Spanish court and that deciding the security’s validity or awarding damages linked to the sale would conflict with recognition of that judgment. The court’s ruling concerned jurisdiction and recognition; it did not determine whether the mortgage had in fact been fraudulently executed.
The order proposed in the judgment recognised the Marbella court’s foreclosure judgment, declared that the High Court had no jurisdiction to hear the security challenge or a claim for damages arising from the sale, and dismissed the action and injunction motion. The parties were given two weeks to make brief written submissions on the precise form of the order and costs. The judgment said costs would provisionally follow the event.