THE HIGH Court has jailed a Galway businessman for contempt over his failure to disclose adequate material relating to the extent of business interests sought as part of efforts to execute a €3.4 million judgment order against him.
Mr Justice Brian McGovern directed gardaí last Thursday to arrest James Clancy, Furbo, Co Galway, and to take him to Mountjoy Prison to serve two weeks for contempt.
The judge had made a committal order against Mr Clancy on March 26th for default of earlier court orders relating to disclosure of assets and business interests and also made an order restraining from him disposing of assets below €3.4 million. He put a stay on the order to last Thursday.
The committal order was made on the application of the De Lange Langen Ireland Company, trading as ACC Asset Finance, which on April 22nd, 2009, secured the €3.4 million judgment against Mr Clancy over unpaid loans for a machine used to manufacture prefabricated polystyrene houses.
On May 18th, 2009, Mr Justice Peter Kelly made an order requiring Mr Clancy to attend court on July 2nd to be examined about his assets and liabilities and whether he had property or other means of satisfying the judgment.
Mr Clancy has said he has no income since 2007 and his Clanview Construction Business was just about gone. In an affidavit last July, he said he had tried in earnest to comply with the court orders but had had problems obtaining documents. He had believed ACC was aware of his difficulties.
Previously the court heard Mr Clancy bought another polystyrene machine in late 2006, an investment of €4.8 million, which he had shipped out to Abu Dhabi from Italy. He had been unable to keep up his end of the deal and his partner had seized the machine.
Mr Clancy said he was unsure about the status of the ownership of the machine in the UAE.
He also said that using his own money, finance from another Galway-based party and a €1 million loan from Bank of Scotland, he had invested almost €2 million in a factory in Romania.
He took a Romanian partner on board but that man had sold land on which the factory was built without his consent. The Romanian police got involved and all the documentation had been seized and he had no access to it.
