Judge to decide if Zoe can appeal yet again

A HIGH Court judge will decide today if the Liam Carroll-controlled Zoe group, with debts of €1.3 billion, is to be allowed an unprecedented fourth legal bid to prevent its threatened financial melt down.

After having refused an application for the appointment of an examiner to seven of the Zoe companies, Mr Justice Frank Clarke was asked yesterday to continue High Court protection of Zoe while its legal team brought yet another appeal to the Supreme Court.

Dutch-owned ACCBank, which is owed €136 million and which has successfully fought off the examinership of Zoe companies for the past two months, asked him to appoint a liquidator to group’s two holding companies, Vantive Holdings and Jersey-based Morston Investments.

The liquidation of Vantive and Morston and the receivership of related companies – Villeer Developments, Peytor Developments, Carragh Enterprises, Parlez International and Royceton – has been on hold since July when Mr Justice Peter Kelly first refused to accept that any of them had “a reasonable prospect of survival”.

After that decision was appealed unsuccessfully to the Supreme Court, the Zoe legal team, led by Bill Shipsey SC, was allowed another opportunity to convince the High Court that the group could survive under a new business plan.

Mr Justice Clarke threw out that application on Thursday last but granted Mr Shipsey, who appeared with barrister Bernard Dunleavy, a stay until yesterday to take instructions on whether or not to appeal again to the Supreme Court.

Mr Shipsey told Mr Justice Clarke that Zoe wished to appeal his ruling and the Chief Justice had indicated that the earliest the Supreme Court could sit to consider or issue directions as to an appeal was early next week – Monday or Tuesday.

In the circumstances, the company would require an extension of court protection until then.

Barrister Rossa Fanning, for ACC, opposed the granting of any further stay and asked the court to grant the bank’s application for the winding up of Vantive and Jersey-registered Morston, to which a provisional liquidator had already been appointed by the court.

He said Zoe’s appeal to the Supreme Court was one which had no reasonable prospect of success. There had been three different court hearings, for the last of which the bank was seeking its legal costs.

Twice in the High Court and once in the Supreme Court the companies had failed to obtain protection and were now seeking “an unprecedented fourth bite of the cherry”.

Mr Justice Clarke said it was appropriate he should hear ACC’s winding-up petition and would accept the evidence he had already heard in the examinership to ground the winding up application.

Mr Shipsey argued that the liquidation of Vantive, the petitioner in the two failed examinership applications, suited nobody as it would lead to all the group’s properties coming on to the market at one time.

He said the group and banks had sought the orderly disposals of assets over time and to avoid firesales of properties.