Court sets date for Custom House Capital compensation hearing

The High Court will deal next March with matters relating to the compensation of investors in the collapsed Custom House Capital (CHC) investment firm which was found to have misappropriated some €66.5 million in client funds.

On Thursday, Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan directed CHC liquidator Kieran Wallace to place a newspaper advertisement notifying investors of the hearing.

There were some 2,000 investors in CHC and a number were in court when the judge gave directions as part of the process of the supervision of the liquidation of the company.

The case was before the court for further consideration of matters under companies legislation and EU regulations governing markets in financial instruments.

Disqualification

Last month, the High Court handed down the longest disqualification in the history of company law to former CHC chief

Harry Cassidy

. He was disqualified from acting as a company director for 14 years.

Investment director John Whyte received a ten-year disqualification while non-executive director John Mulholland was banned for 12 years.

Mr Justice David Keane said the conduct of all three was "deeply dishonest, continued over a protracted period of time until, for a variety of reasons, it could no longer be concealed".

That conduct was “devastating in its impact on those innocent person who had the grave misfortune to entrust the company with their pensions or savings”, the judge added.