The Supreme Court has refused an application by Bula Holdings and other plaintiffs to extend the time for serving a notice of appeal. It concluded that no arguable ground of appeal had been shown against a High Court judgment dismissing their proceedings.
The application concerned the High Court’s 6 May 2008 judgment, which dismissed the proceedings as having no reasonable prospect of success and as an abuse of process. The Supreme Court accepted that the plaintiffs had formed a bona fide intention to appeal in time and that their solicitor’s error explained the late filing. The solicitor had been away when the High Court order was perfected on 11 September 2008. The defendants refused consent to late filing, and the motion for an extension issued on 7 November 2008.
The appeal application turned on allegations that earlier High Court and Supreme Court judgments and orders in two sets of proceedings brought by Crindle Investments should be set aside. The plaintiffs alleged, among other things, fraud and misrepresentation concerning Crindle’s beneficial ownership. They relied on a 1997 meeting memorandum, a deed and correspondence from 2001, and a 1997 solicitor’s memorandum. The Supreme Court said the plaintiffs’ evidence could at most support that certain representations may have been made; it did not establish that those representations were true or prove fraud. One plaintiff had acknowledged he could not say conclusively who owned Crindle in 1997.
The court also noted sworn statements from Thomas J. Roche and an Arthur Cox solicitor that Crindle had been beneficially owned by Roche, his father and Conor Holdings before 13 January 1995, and solely by Roche through a structure involving US entities thereafter. Those statements were disputed in the plaintiffs’ allegations; the Supreme Court’s decision on the extension application was that the material relied on did not establish knowledge by Roche of the alleged facts or an arguable appeal.
The High Court had found that the proceedings had been brought for the improper purpose of delaying payment of costs arising from the earlier Crindle cases. Costs awarded in 2002 were taxed at €462,642.98, and the judgment said about €550,000 was then due. The Supreme Court did not retry the underlying cases or make a new determination of those costs. It declined to extend the appeal deadline and refused the relief sought in the motion.