The High Court has ordered that creditor Seamus Maye’s costs of proceedings concerning two companies in voluntary liquidation be treated as costs in the liquidations. It declined to make a personal costs order against the liquidator or to award costs against creditor notice parties CRH Plc and related companies, and Kilsaran Concrete Products Ltd.
Ms Justice Laffoy delivered the costs judgment on 26 May 2014. The question before her was who should bear costs incurred up to that point. The underlying proceedings had been heard at several stages, with a further three-day hearing in late July and early August 2013. The court had delivered its substantive judgment on 9 May 2014, ultimately upholding the position Maye had taken.
Maye sought his costs from the liquidator, Des Donegan, personally, as well as from the CRH respondents and Kilsaran. The liquidator argued that costs should not be awarded against him personally and should be treated as costs in the liquidation. The notice parties likewise argued that any costs awarded should be borne as costs in the liquidation, rather than by them. They had participated as creditors to protect their interests.
Justice Laffoy said the proceedings arose under the Companies Acts’ statutory jurisdiction to decide questions in voluntary windings-up. Their subject included the conduct and prosecution of an appeal on behalf of the companies. She said this was not a case for ordering one creditor to pay another creditor’s costs, despite Maye’s successful position. The wider dispute between the companies, the CRH respondents and Kilsaran, and the unusual features of the applications also mattered.
The judge noted that the companies had been put into liquidation in 1994, effectively by Maye; the liquidator’s activity concerning the companies’ competition proceedings had been dormant until October 2012; and earlier activity in the companies’ names had been instigated by Maye. The liquidator’s later position, contrary to Maye’s, gave rise to questions affecting Maye, the liquidator and the creditor notice parties.
The order was that Maye receive his costs from the liquidator as costs in the liquidation. The court made no costs order against CRH or Kilsaran and found no basis to order the liquidator to pay costs personally. The judge also noted that, as matters stood, neither company had assets. Maye had pursued the applications to enable the companies’ claims against CRH, Kilsaran and others to proceed, with the stated objective of increasing the companies’ assets.