Ryanair boss given deadline to explain letter

A HIGH Court judge has given Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary until tomorrow to explain why the court was not informed last month of a letter to Mr O’Leary from the Minister for Transport stating the minister would set up a panel to hear Ryanair’s appeal against proposed charges at Dublin Airport.

The fate of Ryanair’s judicial review challenge to the proposed charges could depend on the Ryanair chief’s response, Mr Justice Peter Kelly indicated yesterday.

This was “a very serious state of affairs” and “a big problem” which Ryanair had to address, he said. The “misleading” of the court raised an issue whether Ryanair could bring its challenge at all.

The court should be entitled to expect that a public limited company which regularly carries on litigation should not submit sworn affidavits which misrepresent the true position and contain misleading averments, he added.

A solicitor and Ryanair’s head of legal affairs, who had sworn the two affidavits referred to by the judge, said they were unaware when swearing those affidavits of the existence of the minister’s letter to Mr O’Leary and had not been informed of that letter. Both men also apologised to the court.

The judge said there was still no explanation why the two men had not been told of the minister’s letter to the Ryanair boss. Only Mr O’Leary could provide that explanation, it was for Ryanair to decide if it wished to call evidence from Mr O’Leary and the court would allow until tomorrow to decide that.

The issue arose after the commissioner last month sought to fast-track in the Commercial Court Ryanair’s challenge to his December 4 decision fixing the maximum charges the DAA may levy at Dublin Airport over a five year period to 2014.