AIB entitled to €3.48m judgment

AIB is entitled to summary judgment for €3.48m against two Clare businessmen over default on loans and overdraft facilities, the Commercial Court has ruled.

Developers Patrick Taylor, Moyreisk, Quin, Co Clare, and Garech McGuinness, Whispering Pines, Ennis, Co Clare, originally got the loans from AIB in 2011. They fell into arrears and the bank demanded repayment in 2015. There were still no further payments and it sought judgment.

The men claimed they had an arguable defence to the bank’s claim for summary judgment as the original loans were supplanted by a revised 2013 loan agreement. They claimed the alleged default over the loans was “completely manufactured” by the bank because the men were led to believe by an AIB official that the bank was satisfied with obtaining security for the loans over two sites in Ennis as a condition for the revised 2013 facilities.

The bank said the revised agreement never came into effect because the defendants failed to take necessary steps to create a charge over the Ennis sites they had offered as security. Mr Justice Brian McGovern yesterday ruled the bank was entitled to judgment. There was ample evidence to show the 2013 agreement never came into effect, he said.

There was also no meaningful attempt by the men to engage with figures showing the extent of their debt other than that Mr McGuinness swore an affidavit saying they intended to call a financial expert should the matter go to full hearing, the judge said. Such an assertion went nowhere near meeting the test required to establish a defence to summary judgment, he said.