Bank to pay €10,000 in defamation action

A RETIRED car dealer won €10,000 in damages from State-owned Anglo Irish Bank in a Circuit Court defamation case last week over four dishonoured sterling bank drafts.

Dan Lynch, from Co Kilkenny, who bought new and used cars from dealers in Northern Ireland for resale through his dealership in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, had four bank drafts issued by Anglo’s head office in Dublin dishonoured between March 2005 and February 2006. The drafts totalling about €150,000 were issued to three Northern Irish car dealers: Isaac Agnew and Charles Hurst motor groups and Ian McGoosh, a dealer in Hillsborough, Co Down. They were later honoured at the second attempt to pay them.

In 2007 Mr Lynch, a customer of the bank’s Waterford branch, made a complaint to the Financial Services Ombudsman Joe Meade who ruled that Anglo should pay him €4,000 over issues relating to contract and maladministration.

Mr Lynch, Tybroughney, Piltown, Co Kilkenny, was unhappy with the award and issued Circuit Court defamation proceedings in 2007 claiming the bounced drafts damaged his business reputation.

Anglo claimed that the drafts had not been honoured due to administrative errors.

Judge Alison Lindsay awarded the damages to Mr Lynch in court last Friday. He was represented by solicitor Eamon Hayes in Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary, and Jadel Naidoo BL. Anglo was represented by Gleeson McGrath Baldwin and Eamon Marray BL.