Judge warns Web Summit founders to resolve matters or maybe lose years in dispute

Counsel for Paddy Cosgrave (pictured) had last week said: 'This is a case driven by greed.' File photo: Collins Courts

A High Court judge has warned all parties in the bitter dispute between the three co-founders of the tech conference giant Web Summit to resolve matters ahead of going into evidence.

Mr Justice Michael Twomey quoted French philosopher Voltaire when telling all three businessmen it is possibly years they will never get back.

At the High Court on Tuesday before Web Summit co-founder Daire Hickey was due to give evidence in his action against majority shareholder Paddy Cosgrave, in the second week of the trial Mr Justice Twomey told the parties to work "every day" on a resolution and commended them for entering into mediation efforts before it broke down ahead of the trial.

The judge urged all three not to focus on the “rights and wrongs” of the history of their business disputes and said they should focus on resolution.

Mr Justice Twomey said mediation was "a thousand times more preferable than going into litigation".

The judge quoted Voltaire when saying: 

I was never ruined, but twice - once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one. 

The judge warned that the three months for which the case is scheduled could mean a judgment from him in the winter and that all three parties may not be satisfied by that judgment. This, he said, may lead to appeals and possibly thereafter to Supreme Court appeals, which could take up to three years from now to deliver a final judgment.

Mr Justice Twomey said that there would be a personal cost to the proceedings and that should matters be litigated to their fullest it would be three months of their lives they will "not get back, never get back" and that there would be a "real and human" cost to all involved.

The court then adjourned so the parties could consider the judge's remarks.

Evidence in five separate actions, brought variously by Mr Cosgrave, Mr Hickey and David Kelly, was due to begin being heard at the High Court on Tuesday morning. The proceedings, which opened last week, are scheduled to run for nine weeks.

Mr Cosgrave is suing Mr Kelly, who owns 12% of the shares in Web Summit, for alleged breaches of his fiduciary duties as a director of the company. Majority shareholder Mr Cosgrave is, in turn, being sued by Mr Kelly and Daire Hickey, who holds 7% of the shares in Web Summit, for alleged shareholder oppression and breaches of a profit-sharing agreement.

Daire Hickey arriving at the High Court where he is due to give evidence. Photo: Collins Courts / CC

Last week, when lawyers for all parties made their opening statements, Bernard Dunleavy SC, for Mr Cosgrave, said that proceedings brought by Mr Kelly and Mr Hickey are an attempt to avoid a discount on the potential sale of their shares in the tech conference firm.

Mr Dunleavy, who was responding to opening statements delivered in the proceedings by Mr Hickey and Mr Kelly’s counsel, said Web Summit is “big enough and valuable enough” to make the two minority shareholders “millionaires many times over in the morning” if they sold their stakes.

“This is a case driven by greed. Mr Hickey and Mr Kelly invested nothing in this business. They risked nothing for this business. They both, in their separate ways, betrayed this business,” counsel said. “They want this court to craft for them a windfall which they do not deserve.”