The High Court has allowed John Philip Quearney to continue a limited claim against Allied Irish Banks Plc over its dealings with Money Corp Ltd and loans arranged in 2006 and 2007. It struck out or dismissed several other parts of his case, including claims for deceit, breach of statutory duty and breach of fiduciary duty.
In a judgment delivered on 18 December 2015, Mr Justice McDermott considered AIB’s application to strike out the proceedings. The application was not a trial of the surviving claims. The judge said Quearney could proceed with claims for negligence, breach of duty and breach of contract, and with a sufficiently pleaded claim of negligent misstatement concerning a statement allegedly made by a bank official in 2006.
Quearney alleged that Money Corp had not applied two sterling deposits, paid in 2004 for planned apartment purchases in England, as agreed. He later obtained judgment against Money Corp for €431,000, but had been unable to secure payment. The judgment records that the two drafts were lodged to Money Corp’s sterling account at AIB and that the funds were drawn down within days. The judge found no evidence on the application that AIB knew the drafts’ source or purpose, or that their withdrawal was outside the account mandate.
Quearney’s case included an allegation that, when he was arranging loans with AIB in 2006, a bank official told him Money Corp did not hold accounts with the bank. He said he would not have entered the loan agreements had he known otherwise. The judge found that the pleaded facts were enough for a negligent misstatement claim to proceed, while making clear he was not ruling on its merits. The judge said it remained to be established whether the alleged statement was connected to the loans and whether it caused loss.
The court struck out the deceit claim for lack of particularised allegations and said the pleadings did not set out a stateable claim for breach of statutory duty or fiduciary duty. It also dismissed claims concerning loss of consortium, setting aside an earlier order, alleged constitutional breaches, reckless lending and claims that AIB had created a false boom and crippled the country.
The judge said the action could proceed only on the limited basis identified in the judgment. The court’s ruling did not determine whether the surviving allegations were true or whether Quearney was entitled to damages or rescission of the loan contracts.