McKillen seeks documents held by Barclay brothers

Property investor Paddy McKillen needs to get documents held by the billionaire Barclay brothers for his legal action against Irish Bank Resolution Corporation and the brothers over the proposed sale by IBRC of his multimillion-euro portfolio of loans, the High Court was told yesterday.

Mr McKillen, who last year lost his UK court battle against David and Frederick Barclay for control of three luxury London hotels in the Maybourne group, claims the special liquidators of IBRC intend selling his loans next month to the Barclays.

He alleges, among other things, that there is a conspiracy between IBRC, its liquidators, Nama, the Department of Finance and the Barclays to interfere with and injure his commercial interests by ensuring the brothers’ corporate vehicles will acquire his loans.

Personal loans
These include €246 million in personal loans secured by a charge on certain assets including his shares in Coroin Ltd, the holding company for the three London hotels at the centre of last year's English case. He says the IBRC liquidators should not accept any bid for the loans from the Barclays because of a "good faith" provision in the Coroin shareholders agreement.

He says such a sale would be a breach of his constitutional and European Convention rights and a hearing of the matter has been set for the High Court next month.

Claims denied
Those claims are denied by the defendants who include IBRC, the special liquidators, the Barclay brothers and a number of companies of which the Barclays are alleged to be the beneficial owners through a family trust, the court heard.

To be prepared for that case, Mr McKillen says he needs the court to order legal disclosure (discovery) of documents held by the Barclay defendants. The Barclays say all documentation in their possession was given to Mr McKillen as part of the discovery process for the English case over control of the hotels.

Denis McDonald SC, for Mr McKillen, yesterday asked Mr Justice Michael White to order discovery as his client did not accept the Barclays’ claim that all relevant documents had already been released.

His side was concerned whether full discovery was made for the English case.

Mr McDonald accepted there may be an overlap of documents between the English and Irish proceedings, but at the very least there should be an affidavit sworn by the Barclay defendants that they had no other documents than what had been provided in England.

The Barclay defendants claim the application is an abuse of process and should be struck out.

Mr McKillen has previously told the court, in an affidavit, that he had been a customer of IBRC – the former Anglo Irish Bank – for more than 20 years and has numerous performing loans. They include borrowings of €241 million relating to his interest in the Jervis Street car park in Dublin; loans of €308 million relating to his interest in properties in Doncaster; and the personal loans of more than €246 million secured on assets including shares in Coroin.

Following the banking crises, he said he sought to protect his position and that of his associated businesses by ensuring the Doncaster, Jervis Street and personal loans could not be called in, which would mean he would be left without credit facilities.

The hearing continues.