Banks criticised for sloppy presentation of cases

A HIGH COURT judge has criticised the “sloppy” and “careless” manner in which legal proceedings are being brought by various banks in their efforts to recover multi-million euro unpaid loans, mostly relating to property developments.

Mr Justice Peter Kelly, who manages the Commercial Court list, noted that, in one case yesterday by Anglo Irish Bank, the bank had in its legal claim sued for €3 million when the sum involved was actually €9m.

The judge said an error of €6m was suggestive of carelessness and there was “a lot of that” in High Court actions brought by banks. If a claim was for €9m, that should be the amount specified in the summons.

Anglo “can’t spell principal either”, the judge said, referring to a document where principal was misspelt as the “principle” sum advanced. However, that error was “not fatal”.

The judge was yesterday dealing with proceedings by Anglo against Michael McKenna, of Killahan, Abbeydorney, Co Kerry, in which the bank is seeking summary judgment for €9.3m over loans to Mr McKenna himself and alsoarising from his alleged guarantee of loans made to a company, Moormac Developments Ltd.

The bank claims Mr McKenna has provided guarantees over loans to Moormac and some €3.1m was due and owing by the company by June last which remained unpaid.

It also claims Mr McKenna had failed to repay a loan of some €5.9m advanced to him personally in August 2008. It alleges some €9.3m is now due and owing.

It also claims it has made extensive efforts to solve the issues through negotiations with Mr McKenna, including talks about the possible sale of a property at Ballybunion, Co Kerry, to raise funds.

It had recently become clear the matter would not be resolved without court proceedings, the bank said.

While it was argued the bank had delayed bringing the proceedings, the judge said he would transfer the case to the Commercial Court and would list the summary judgment application for hearing in December.