Lynch family sues AIB and solicitors over loan deal

WELL-KNOWN businessman Philip Lynch, his wife Eileen and their four children are suing AIB and two firms of solicitors in a bid to stop the bank pursuing them individually over unpaid loans of €25.3 million advanced to buy lands in Waterford for development.

A process leading to AIB’s deletion in its loan facility letter of a clause concerning the nature of the bank’s recourse for the €25.3m loan raised the “most profound questions” about the ethics of AIB’s behaviour, Michael McDowell, counsel for the family, said yesterday.

Mr McDowell also argued that, between two law firms, LK Shields Solicitors, then acting for the Lynchs, and Matheson Ormsby Prentice Solicitors, representing Gerard Conlan, the Lynchs were collectively led to believe on February 8, 2007, they were signing up to a borrowing regime which would involve AIB having recourse only to the Waterford lands.