Treasury and Nama await judgment

A High Court judge has reserved judgment on the challenge by troubled developer Treasury Holdings to Nama’s decision calling in more than €1bn of its loans and appointing receivers over its properties here.

The seven-day hearing concluded yesterday before Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan who reserved her decision. The judge indicated she will give judgment by the end of this law term on Jul 31.

Treasury, which is insolvent with total debt of more than €2.7bn, has argued the decision calling in its loans was made without notice to it and without giving it a proper opportunity to be heard.

Nama denied those and other claims and also contended it could not be expected to engage in “endless debate” with Treasury before calling in the €1bn loans when Treasury was unable to continue trading without money from Nama.

The agency also argued the terms of a “stand still agreement” between the sides, under which Nama agreed to consider proposals by other parties to acquire the loans before proceeding to enforcement, are such as to prohibit Treasury succeeding in the legal action.

Treasury Holdings and 22 related companies secured leave earlier this year to bring the proceedings challenging Nama’s Dec 2011 decision calling in the loans and a Jan 2011 decision appointing receivers.

The action was opposed by Nama and KBC Bank, which is owed €75m by Treasury.

KBC has argued Treasury’s action is pointless in circumstances where KBC had said it would not agree to any restructuring of the Treasury loans.

In a notice served on Jun 29 last, KBC said it will seek an order winding up Treasury Holdings within a period of 21 days unless it is paid €20m.

Nama early last week also issued demands for repayment of €3m each to John Ronan and Richard Barrett in their capacity as guarantor of a €13.5m loan to Treasury.