The High Court has ordered CLM Properties Ltd. to pay the Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland’s costs of a preliminary issue in a dispute concerning money collected in connection with landfill sites. The costs include the hearing and written submissions on an application for a reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union, and are to be taxed if the parties cannot agree them.
In a judgment delivered on 30 May 2014, Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan decided that section 3(1) of the Environmental (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2011 did not apply to CLM’s proceedings. The section generally provides that each party bears its own costs in proceedings within its scope.
The judge said the action’s purpose, “in reality and substance”, was to recover money CLM alleged was due from Greenstar Holdings Ltd. and KTK Landfill Ltd. for work at landfill sites. CLM relied on alleged obligations under section 53A of the Waste Management Act 1996 as part of its legal basis for seeking payment from money previously held in a Greenstar Ltd. account and appropriated by the Bank under its security.
The underlying preliminary issue had been decided in the Bank’s favour in an earlier judgment delivered on 8 April 2014. It concerned whether money collected under section 53A had to be used solely to pay for the closure, restoration, remediation and aftercare of the relevant landfill for 30 years. The court answered that it was not required by law to be used solely for those purposes.
The judge said it was therefore unnecessary to decide whether an alleged failure to comply with statutory requirements had caused, was causing or was likely to cause environmental damage. She added that, if required to decide that question, she would also have reached a negative conclusion.
In deciding costs, the court considered that CLM had played a relatively small part in the joint hearing with a related case brought by the Environmental Protection Agency. The judge held that this did not justify making no costs order: CLM could have waited for the related case’s decision but chose to participate. The Bank was awarded the costs of the preliminary issue, with CLM’s participation treated as secondary to the EPA’s in the joint trial. The judgment concerns costs of the preliminary issue; it does not determine the final outcome of CLM’s underlying claim.