Seán Dunne loses his US battle but the war continues

Twenty months after he sought refuge in the US bankruptcy courts and a faster passage away from €700 million of debts that he would have had to navigate in Ireland, property developer Seán Dunne raised the white flag in a Connecticut court. It took less than five minutes.

"It's done – it's on the record," said Judge Alan Shiff, who has presided over Dunne's bid for bankruptcy since March last year.

The paperwork still has to be filed: a waiver of discharge document must be submitted by Friday, but this is just a formality. The handshakes between Nama's lawyers and attorneys representing Dunne and his wife, Gayle Killilea Dunne, after the hearing represented the end of a hard-fought battle. Dunne (60) was not in court.

The judge’s declaration marks the denouement of this stop-start-stop legal challenge by Nama, which has a judgment of €185 million against the developer.

The State agency took a legal challenge in July last year, seeking to block his attempt to be discharged with a clean financial start. It claimed he fraudulently transferred millions of euro to his wife when he was facing insolvency. The developer, one of the most ambitious of the Celtic Tiger years, admitted making the transfers but argued they occurred at a time when he was worth hundreds of millions of euro.

Dunne’s waiver means he avoids two things in the US: a costly and lengthy trial, scheduled for January, to decide whether he should receive a discharge and, potentially, a court order compelling the couple to disclose financial information.

In an about-face in August, Dunne unexpectedly sought to withdraw his US bankruptcy on the basis he had been adjudicated a bankrupt in Ireland on a petition by Ulster Bank in July last year. Last month he withdrew that withdrawal attempt, without saying why.

Valuable record

The attempt by Dunne to wipe the debt slate clear in the US has backfired badly. Not only has he surrendered his right to a discharge – a valuable record for a heavily indebted individual that would protect him from future lawsuits – he has also relinquished assets and opened himself up to further actions in the bankruptcy case.

Dunne’s finances are still being investigated by US trustee, the court official overseeing his US bankruptcy. The trustee is weighing whether to take actions to recover assets from Ms Killilea Dunne (39), the former gossip columnist, for the benefit of creditors owed $942 million (€700 million) by the developer.

Under the US legal system, each side will pay their own (substantial) costs in Nama’s 16-month challenge.

Dunne’s US and Irish bankruptcy officials are said to be working in tandem, so the decision of the Commercial Court in Dublin on Monday to fast-track a dispute over whether his asset transfers to his wife are legally valid may make a similar action in the US redundant.

Dunne has lost this battle, and the war continues.