Not content with its five previous applications against John McCabe and family, NAMA yesterday launched a sixth action in Dublin’s High Court. The application reference is 2012/3603 S and as with the previous five applications, the plaintiff is National Asset Loan Management Limited represented by Dublin top-tier solicitors McCann Fitzgerald. The sole respondent is John McCabe senior and as is usual with recently-filed applications, there is no solicitor-on-record for the respondent shown on the Courts Service website.
It was reported by the Irish Independent during the week that NAMA was “fuming” after John McCabe is said to have claimed to have paid €6m to a Bahraini company, Western Gulf Advisory, as a fee to help secure €360m of funding for his company, McCabe Builders. Word on the street is that John has recently been in Bahrain seeking the return of the fees, without success, and a story was doing the rounds that John was “imprisoned” at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Bahrain when he was unable to pay his bills when NAMA froze his assets, though eventually through the help of friends the bill was paid and John was liberated to return home. The NAMA cases against the McCabes are set to return to the High Court in October 2012.
In the past, NAMA has taken legal action against individuals to enforce personal guarantees or to secure personal judgments, but it should be stressed that we do not know if either of these objectives lies behind the current application. NAMA generally doesn’t comment on individual legal cases.
So far this year, NAMA has launched 28 separate actions in Dublin’s High Court and has been on the receiving end of six.
