NAMA sues Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett personally

It was pretty shocking yesterday to see the complete listing of the 80-odd legal actions taken in Dublin’s High Court in 2010 by sub-prime mortgage lender, GE Money Ireland, but the list of actions this year initiated by NAMA is beginning to grow into the same ballpark. Yesterday the Agency lodged an application against two ofIreland’s best-known developers, the colourful John (Johnny) Ronan and the under-stated Richard Barrett together with their flagship development company, Treasury Holdings. The case reference is 2012/4092 P, there are two NAMA entities taking the action – National Asset Management Agency and National Asset Loan Management Limited, both represented by Dublin solicitors, William Fry. The presence of National Asset Management Agency as one of the plaintiffs is unusual and may signify there are matters of great importance at issue.

Of course, NAMA is in the wars with Treasury Holdings at present. Last month Treasury won the right to have NAMA’s dealings with its loans subjected to a judicial review. And last week the parties were back in court with NAMA seeking security for costs for the forthcoming judicial review on account of the fact that Treasury is massively balance sheet-insolvent. The judge may make a decision on the issue of costs this week, though it is noteworthy that NAMA has abandoned its application for a so-called “fortified undertaking” from Messrs Ronan and Barrett personally to foot the costs; if Treasury loses the judicial review of course.

We don’t yet have details of the current application. 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.

UPDATE: 26th April, 2012. The Irish Independent reports today ” NAMA is undertood (sic) to be claiming that the deal amounts to an asset transfer.” Hmm, maybe it means unlawful asset transfer or asset transfer designed to place assets beyond the reach of creditors. The TAIL transaction referred to in the article is detailed here.

UPDATE: 27th April, 2012. The Irish Times reports a reaction from Treasury to this case. It is, according to the newspaper “surprised and puzzled” by NAMA’s application and “we remain open to discussing and agreeing the resolution of this issue without the need for a further expensive outing in the courts funded by the taxpayer” said Treasury (hopefully).