NAMA has made an application to Dublin’s High Court against the directors of a company behind a €150m Louth business park. The case – reference 2012/1032 S – lists four parties as defendants, Kevin McNulty, Conal Byrne, Ashburton Construction Limited and P A Bello Limited. The plaintiff is National Asset Loan Management Limited, a NAMA group company which is represented by Beauchamps solicitors. The application was lodged on 21st March 2012 and there have not yet been any filings or orders in the case.
Ashburton Construction Limited has its registered offices at Unit 5, Clondalkin Business Park, Crag Crescent, Clondalkin and has a trading address at 132 James Street in Dublin8. Its two directors are listed as Kevin McNulty and Conal Byrne. Conal Byrne is also the company secretary.
PA Bello Limited, whose registered address is also at Unit 5 of the Clondalkin Business Park, is behind the “de Vesci Hill” residential development in Abbeyleix, Co Laois, the €150m Boyne Bridge Business Park in Drogheda, Co Louth, a 42-house development in Collon, County Louth
In the past NAMA has taken action against individuals to obtain judgments and has also stated that it intends taking legal action to reverse spousal transfers. It is not apparent from the information presently available here, as to the root of the present applications.
UPDATE: 23rd April, 2012. This case was mentioned before Mr Justice Peter Kelly today at the Commercial Court but has been adjourned for three weeks because of incomplete service of documents by NAMA and because a defendant requested more time to examine papers which he claimed were served by NAMA only last Friday 20th April, 2012. There is a detailed report in the Irish Times this evening which builds anticipation for the full hearing itself. NAMA is alleging “grave irregularities” in respect of dealings in property secured on Anglo loans which the Agency has now acquired. Anglo seems to have made boo-boos by releasing several properties unintentionally from charges, and the defendants seem to have transferred property to spouses out of NAMA’s apparent reach. At its heart NAMA is seeking judgments of €90m against the defendants, but there seems to be a litany of irregularity in the case which will make the full hearing in three weeks all the more interesting.
UPDATE: 12th February 2013. The above case came before the redoubtable Judge Kelly in Dublin’s High Court yesterday, and it has all the makings of a real humdinger when the substantive hearing takes place in June 2013. Because Judge Kelly has indicated that he will consider a defence of negligent lending if it can be shown if Anglo, whose loan NAMA has now taken over, was negligent in advancing loans in 2009 if it was insolvent. Judge Kelly ordered an affidavit from an Anglo official – if there are any left! – to confirm “yes or no” if Anglo was insolvent in 2009. Remember, it was March 2010 and later when Anglo received the €25bn in promissory notes. More detail is provided on the case by Ann O’Loughlin in the Irish Examiner today. NAMA is pursuing judgment against three of the four respondents – Kevin McNulty, Ashburton Construction Limited and PA Bello Limited over €88m of loan facilities provided in 2009, personal guarantees from Kevin which date back to 1998 and 2003 and from Conal Byrne over a personal guarantee of €4.1m allegedly provided in 1999 for liabilities of Asburton Limited. The case is said to have arisen when NAMA became concerned over grave irregularities in loan documentation and transfers from Kevin to his wife, Jessica McNulty.
NAMA Wine Lake 