Ruling in epic legal battle finds Ireland breached rights of Wicklow firm

IRELAND breached the rights of a Wicklow company involved in a series of lengthy legal actions against insurance firms which refused to pay out damages following a fire at a factory, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.

The ruling brings to an end one of the longest and most expensive civil actions in Irish legal history in which the owner of a burnt-down plastics factory was seeking £90 million in damages.

Superwood Holdings and its executive chairman, Richard Bunyan, began legal proceedings against the group’s insurers in 1989.