Bank told to produce extra data in Lynn case

Bank of Scotland Ireland (BoSI) has been ordered by the High Court to produce additional documents sought by missing solicitor Michael Lynn's wife to support her claim that "alarm bells" should have sounded at the bank before it granted further substantial loans to her husband and herself.

Brid Murphy requires the documents to defend proceedings in which the bank wants orders requiring her to repay €3.85 million in loans advanced to her and her husband in April last year to buy their proposed new family home, Glenlion, in Howth.

At the Commercial Court yesterday, Mr Justice Peter Kelly directed that the bank should produce to Ms Murphy's lawyers further documents concerning its decision to grant loans for 10 properties to Mr Lynn and various companies with which he was associated. The documents are additional to material already supplied by BoSI concerning loans granted to Mr Lynn and secured on undertakings related to five properties.

In seeking the documents, Gary McCarthy, for Ms Murphy, said he would be contending that the management of earlier loans for the 10 properties given to Mr Lynn and his companies by BoSI prior to the loans relating to the five properties should have sounded "alarm bells" within the bank and persuaded it not to loan further monies to the Lynns.

Counsel said BoSI had advanced the loans to Ms Murphy on the basis of incomplete information and a reasonable banker would not have advanced those monies. His side had received late a report of the bank's credit committee which, counsel said, was very relevant to the information the bank had when it loaned monies to Mr Lynn and Ms Murphy.

This information related to other loans for 10 residential and commercial properties and showed Mr Lynn and his companies had already very substantial liabilities to the bank when the disputed loans were advanced.

Caroline Costello, for the bank, said her side had interpreted the discovery order in good faith and had understood it was required to discover information relating to the five properties only. She argued the pleadings referred to five properties only and a motion by Ms Murphy to dismiss the bank's proceedings against her for failure to make discovery was unwarranted and unnecessary.

While directing the documents in question be produced within six weeks, the judge refused to dismiss the bank's proceedings against Ms Murphy on grounds of failure to comply with the court's discovery order made last month.

The judge said such a dismissal order could not be made when there was a genuine dispute about the species of documents to be produced and the application was really about seeking clarification of what should be discovered. A genuine disagreement between the sides had arisen because of the unhappy wording of a letter from Ms Murphy's side seeking discovery. It was appropriate the documents sought should be discovered to show the bank's state of knowledge when the loans were advanced.