Case brought by builder Joe Cosgrave’s widow over shareholding in companies to be mediated, court hears

Members of the Cosgrave building family involved in a High Court dispute over shareholdings in the well-known property development group will seek to resolve their differences via out-of-court mediation.

The proceedings were brought by the widow of Dublin builder Joe Cosgrave alleging his brothers Michael and William and two firms in the Cosgrave group “opportunistically” used his death to take control of the Cosgrave group.

Denise Cosgrave brought the case against the two brothers and two firms in the Cosgrave group: Genstar Unlimited Co and JOM Investments Limited Company, over an alleged refusal to register as a shareholder in the two companies.

The court was told previously that the defendants maintain they have acted properly and in the best interests of the group.

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Joe Cosgrave died in February 2022 at the age of 62. The family business’s commercial portfolio included Rathmines Town Centre, what became the Radisson Blu St Helen’s Hotel in Stillorgan and the Ulster Bank building on George’s Quay.

On Monday, Lyndon MacCann SC, for the two brothers, told the Commercial Court that “very significant progress” has been made between the parties in the action, which is going to be mediated.

Mr Justice Denis McDonald said this was “definitely the kind of case that should be mediated”.

He listed for it to be mentioned before him in April, as requested by Mr MacCann and supported by barrister Stephen Byrne, for Genstar and JOM.

The judge wished the parties well in their out-of-court talks.

Ms Cosgrave’s case, which was admitted to the Commercial Court last June, seeks declarations that she is entitled to be registered as a one-third shareholder in Genstar and JOM in her capacity as personal representative of her late husband, who owed a third of those firms.

She alleges Michael and William, who are the other shareholders and directors of the group, acted arbitrarily, capriciously, perversely and/or irrationally in refusing to consider that her husband’s will, along with a High Court order, proved her entitlement to be registered as a Genstar and JOM shareholder.

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Ms Cosgrave said several business transactions needed to be conducted immediately after his death on behalf of his estate, which required a limited grant of administration from the High Court.

She alleged her solicitors wrote to Michael Cosgrave the month after her husband’s death asking for her to be registered as a shareholder in the firms. She claims this request was refused.

Her lawyers then applied to the High Court again and secured permission to apply for and extract a grant of probate limited to applying to become registered as a shareholder of the firms in her capacity as executor.

However, she alleged, the directors continued to refuse to register her and demanded that she first produce a grant of probate without which, they allegedly said, she lacked standing to seek registration.

In her legal documents of last June, she said the directors were proposing that Genstar and JOM take “wide-ranging and irrevocable decisions that will impact the entire future” of the group including the sale of a very considerable holding of undeveloped residential and commercial land and the incurring of substantial new debt.

She said she was concerned the firms’ value would be “significantly eroded” during the period of her waiting for a limited grant of probate to issue.

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