Couple ordered not to lower their assets in State below £100,000

A building company has secured a High Court order restraining a food executive and his wife from dissipating their assets in this jurisdiction below £100,000.

Mr Robert Hastings said his client, DCD Builders Ltd, was seeking the order following a recent newspaper article in which Mr Robert Osbourne, sales and marketing director with BWG, the Irish distribution company of Groupe Pernod Ricard, stated he was leaving Ireland for a new appointment as managing director of Goodwins of Hanley, the English delivery firm which BWG took over last January.

Counsel said "alarm bells began to ring" when his client became aware of that article, published in the Sunday Business Post on January 10th last.

In light of the article, Arthur Cox, solicitors for DCD, wrote to the solicitors on record for Mr and Mrs Osbourne seeking an undertaking in respect of sums which the company said were due it from the couple but were met with a "resounding silence", Mr Hastings said.

He said DCD claimed the couple owed it some £130,000 in respect of works to their home at Ballybride, Old Rathmichael, Co Dublin. The proceedings were "hotly contested", he added.

In an affidavit, Mr Sean Dunne, of DCD, said he believed the Osbournes were citizens of the UK who had been resident in the Republic for nine years. He said their connection to the Republic arose through Mr Osbourne's employment as a cash and carry director with Musgraves from 1994 to 1997 and a general manager for Ireland with Marks and Spencer between 1989 and 1994.

Mr Dunne said he had been unable to ascertain the position concerning the Osbournes' house at Ballybride, which had an estimated value of up to £750,000, but believed this was their sole asset in the jurisdiction.

In view of this, and the failure of the defendants' solicitors to respond to the letter from DCD's solicitors, Mr Dunne said he was apprehensive the defendants would leave the jurisdiction and liquidate or remove their assets.

As eight days had elapsed since DCD's solicitors had sent their letter to the Osbournes' solicitors on record, and as that letter stated that DCD would seek an injunction unless an undertaking was given by January 14th regarding sums due to the building company, Ms Justice Laffoy said she would grant the order sought.

She granted an injunction restraining the defendants from reducing their assets below £100,000 only, not £130,000, as a sum of some £30,000 had been lodged in court in relation to the existing proceedings involving DCD and the defendants. She gave the defendants liberty to apply at 24 hours' notice and returned the order next Monday.