The Court of Appeal has dismissed Michael Wymes’s appeal against the refusal to annul his bankruptcy adjudication, leaving the High Court’s order in place.
In a judgment delivered on 7 July 2020, Ms Justice Faherty, with whom Ms Justice Kennedy and Ms Justice Ní Raifeartaigh agreed, found no basis to set aside or otherwise interfere with the High Court’s decision. The appeal concerned the High Court’s refusal of Wymes’s application to show cause against the validity of the adjudication under section 16 of the Bankruptcy Act 1988.
The bankruptcy petition arose from costs ordered against Wymes and Richard Wood in litigation against Tara Mines Ltd and other defendants. A final certificate for the High Court costs issued in July 2003. The petitioners later pursued bankruptcy proceedings, relying on Wymes’s failure to pay the debt after service of a bankruptcy summons in March 2010. The Supreme Court dismissed challenges to the summons in 2017. In March 2018, the High Court adjudicated Wymes bankrupt; neither Wymes nor Wood appealed that order.
Wymes argued that no act of bankruptcy had occurred within the three months before the petition was presented, and challenged the petition’s wording and supporting affidavits. The Court of Appeal rejected those arguments. It held that the petition had been presented within three months of the 14-day payment period expiring, and that the earlier dismissal of the challenge to the summons meant the payment obligation remained. The petition, read as a whole, sufficiently recited the debt and act of bankruptcy; two affidavits had accompanied it.
The court also rejected Wymes’s grounds concerning limitation, alleged improper purpose and an accommodation involving Wood, delay and oppression, an asserted outstanding form of execution, and the public importance of the earlier litigation. It concluded that these matters had been addressed in earlier proceedings and that the High Court had considered whether they justified annulment on just and equitable grounds. The appeal court found no error in that assessment and no basis to annul the adjudication.
The court said costs would normally follow the event and proposed to order Wymes to pay the respondents’ costs 14 days after judgment, unless a party applied within that period for a different order. The judgment set out a process for written submissions if such an application were made; it did not state that a later costs order had already been made.