BANKRUPT BUSINESSMAN Seán Quinn has been ordered by the Commercial Court to repay about €417 million to the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, representing the largest summary judgment amount ever entered in the courts here against an individual.
The bank wants total summary judgment orders for about €2 billion against the businessman, once Ireland’s richest man. Mr Justice Peter Kelly said yesterday it had made a “powerful” case for the entirety of those orders to which Mr Quinn appeared to have no defence.
He ruled the IBRC was entitled to about €417 million summary judgment orders yesterday as Mr Quinn had admitted in his bankruptcy proceedings in Northern Ireland that he was liable to the bank for sums of $219.9 million and €253.9 million.
Given that admission, it would require “extraordinary” circumstances to refuse judgment in those sums and he would enter judgment for them (totalling about €417 million), he said.
However, as a courtesy to the Northern Ireland Official Receiver in bankruptcy, he has stood over to Monday his decision whether to grant summary judgment for the remaining €1.6 billion to allow the Receiver consider if he wishes to seek a stay on the bank’s proceedings.
Mr Quinn voluntarily filed for bankruptcy in Belfast on November 11th, nine days after the bank initiated the summary judgment proceedings here.
IBRC, formerly Anglo Irish Bank, has since brought proceedings in the North seeking to annul his adjudication as a bankrupt. Those proceedings will come before the Northern courts today but are considered unlikely to be determined before next year.
Mr Justice Kelly said yesterday he was “very inclined” to enter summary judgment for the total amount of about €2 billion as the bank had made out “a powerful case”.
It was difficult to see how Mr Quinn had any defence given the “tightly drawn” guarantees and other instruments under which he was being sued.
Nor was any defence being outlined by the Official Receiver.
If the receiver sought a stay, the basis for such an application and what advantages the receiver expected to glean from it “will have to be explained to me”, the judge added. “To date, I have not heard of any.”
The receiver had last Monday sought an adjournment of the bank’s summary judgment proceedings but the bank strongly resisted that and insisted it was entitled to proceed for summary judgment.
Mr Justice Kelly reserved judgment on the adjournment application. Giving judgment yesterday, he noted the bank had three actions against Mr Quinn seeking summary judgment for “enormous” sums.
The first case involved claims for €1.05 billion, $808 million and ¥13.8 billion allegedly due under a deed of guarantee and indemnity of November 2007 in which Mr Quinn guaranteed the liabilities of Quinn Finance related to loans made to finance ventures in Russia, India and other places.
The second case sought to recover €372.2 million over guarantees executed by Mr Quinn in 2003, 2005 and 2007 over loans made to a number of Quinn companies, while the third action related to €3 million personal borrowings of Mr Quinn and his wife Patricia.
The claim against Ms Quinn has been adjourned to next month.
