IBRC liquidators get dragged into a legal swamp

Among the various US property assets controlled by Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), the zombie corpse of Anglo, there appears to be a circus.

Okay, that’s not quite true – it’s actually a shopping centre in Tampa, Florida called the Channelside Bay Mall – but the legal furore surrounding the bank’s efforts to offload it is turning into a circus.

IBRC, which has Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in the US, has been hit with a blizzard of lawsuits in recent weeks over Channelside.

Potential buyers are fighting to gain control of the dilapidated centre, which IBRC controls on foot of a 2006 $27 million loan to a New York company.

Three rival bidders have emerged, and two of them are engaged in a series of legal rows
over who should have first dibs at buying control from IBRC, which keeps getting dragged in as a defendant.

The bank just wants shot of
the thing at this stage. Poor Kieran Wallace, one of the KPMG liquidators for IBRC, has been criss-crossing the Atlantic so often to deal
with it, he recently complained to a judge.

His last sojourn was on Valentine's Day, when he appeared in a federal bankruptcy court seeking approval for a $5.75 million deal to offload Channelside to the Tampa Port Authority.

He complained that IBRC merely wants to dispose “of a loan that has engaged the special liquidators in a disproportionate amount of attention, in light of the balance of the size of their overall portfolio”.

It was to no avail. Liberty, a rival bidder, scuppered the deal. It wants IBRC to accept its $7 million bid.

This month, the authority went back to court to try to get its nose in front again with fresh proceedings.

The next oral hearing is on Tuesday, April Fool’s day. Wallace was unavailable for comment, so I don’t know if he has to jet over to the US yet again.

The third bidder, who entered the fray this month, is a local developer called Benjamin Mallah. He recently opened a restaurant in Tampa in conjunction with the former wrestling star, Hulk Hogan.

I wouldn’t mess with him.