The High Court has refused an application by former Document Imaging Systems Limited director Joseph Corcoran to join proceedings seeking restriction orders against three other former directors of the company.
Document Imaging Systems was ordered to be wound up on April 3, 2000, when Eamonn Leahy was appointed official liquidator. The liquidator later brought separate applications under section 150 of the Companies Act 1990 against former directors.
One application concerned Mr Corcoran alone. Another concerned Simon Coyle, Kathryn Corcoran and Kenneth Blowers.
A preliminary issue arose over whether Joseph Corcoran had been a director within the 12 months preceding the winding-up. On April 6, 2005, the High Court decided that he had not and dismissed the section 150 application against him.
Mr Corcoran, who was both a creditor and contributory of the company, then sought to join the remaining restriction proceedings. He said he had direct knowledge of the conduct of the other directors and wished to support the liquidator's application for restrictions against Mr Coyle and Mr Blowers.
Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan refused that request. She held that a 2001 amendment to section 150 specifically provided that applications could be made by the Director of Corporate Enforcement, a liquidator or a receiver. The wording meant that someone outside those categories could not become an applicant in section 150 proceedings.
The judge left open whether, in another case, a person might be joined merely as a notice party. She said exceptional circumstances would in any event be required where that person sought to support the liquidator, and none existed here.
However, the ruling did not exclude Mr Corcoran's evidence. The court allowed affidavits he had already sworn in the earlier application against him to be treated as filed in the proceedings against the remaining directors. Those directors remained free to object at the substantive hearing to any passages they considered irrelevant or inadmissible.