The Court of Appeal has affirmed an order allowing the Registrar of Companies to enforce a €25,215.06 costs award against Arnaud D. Gaultier, and ordered him to pay the Registrar’s costs of his unsuccessful appeal after those costs are assessed.
The costs arose from Gaultier’s failed judicial review challenge to the Registrar’s dissolution of Loire Valley Limited for failing to file required accounts and returns. The High Court ordered him to pay costs in 2013. They were later assessed at €25,215.06.
Because the costs order had not been executed within six years, the Registrar applied in 2022 for leave under the Rules of the Superior Courts to issue execution. In July 2023, the High Court granted that application, finding that the Registrar had sufficiently explained the delay and that Gaultier had not shown he was prejudiced. Gaultier appealed, but the Court of Appeal dismissed that appeal in a judgment delivered on 7 March 2025.
The judgment now addresses the costs of that appeal. At a hearing on 11 April 2025, Gaultier sought to contest the Registrar’s presumptive entitlement to costs. He also attempted to revisit the substance of the appeal and raised other complaints, including that an earlier judgment had not represented all his submissions. The court rejected those arguments, stating that it was not required to address every submission line by line and that the earlier judgment had dealt with his main argument.
Gaultier argued that the Registrar’s failure to write to him before applying for leave, the conduct of the proceedings and the claimed test-case nature of his appeal justified an order in his favour. The court rejected those grounds. It said the application for leave was required by the rules and that the Registrar had relied on Gaultier’s appeals and leave application to explain the delay, not to criticise his exercise of appeal rights.
In a judgment delivered on 6 May 2025, the Court of Appeal affirmed the High Court order. It directed that the Registrar’s costs of the appeal, including the costs hearing, be assessed, and that Gaultier pay them once assessed. The order did not specify the amount of those appeal costs.