IBRC to sue brother of David Drumm

A brother of former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm is being sued for €234,000 by the bank's successor, Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), over alleged non-payment of loans and hire purchase agreements.

IBRC, now in special liquidation, is seeking summary judgment for €234,663 after Ken Drumm, a businessman currently living and working in the UK, allegedly failed to make repayments on five separate loan and hire purchase agreements he or his former company entered into with Anglo between 2006 and 2008.

The agreements included finance for the hire purchase of vehicles, including a Land Rover and a BMW, as well as to enable him to buy shares in Anglo, the High Court heard.

Mr Drumm contends he has a defence to summary judgement and is entitled to a full hearing.

Overcharged
He claims the bank overcharged him in interest affecting at least two of the agreements and there is no basis for its claim he is personally liable in relation to the loan agreement to purchase Anglo shares. He also says the bank was in breach of consumer credit legislation by failing to provide him with copies of the agreements.

The bank says he is personally liable for this debt but he claims the agreement that was there would be no personal recourse to him because the shares were security for the loan and Anglo retained control over those in a nominee account. IBRC argues there is no basis for Mr Drumm’s claims in relation to alleged interest overcharging and it checked all his accounts to verify this. It says the share-purchase loan was never a non-personal recourse loan and he was always meant to be liable regardless of what happened to the value of the shares.

Mr Drumm, representing himself, argued he was entitled to a full plenary hearing of his case because summary judgment procedures did not allow for full disclosure, or discovery, of documents but a full hearing did.

If he got certain documents through discovery, he would be able to prove the bank overcharged him interest as it had admitted doing so in relation to other account holders. He would also be able to call a former bank official who would testify interest overcharging was commonplace. He could also identify the senior bank official who told him the share purchase loan was to be non-recourse.

The case before Mr Justice Daniel Herbert resumes on May 7th.