The Minister for Justice's application for an order directing Ansbacher Cayman Limited and a number of other financial institutions, including the Central Bank, to repay the €3.4 million costs of the inspectors' investigation into Ansbacher's affairs was struck out by agreement by Miss Justice Mella Carroll in the High Court yesterday.
After the different sides involved had spent the morning trying to reach a settlement outside the court, Mr Gerard Hogan SC, for the Minister, said shortly after lunchtime that the matter could be struck out.
Last January Mr Justice Smyth issued directions to facilitate a hearing of the case which was expected to last about three days on a preliminary issue as to whether the Minister was also entitled to seek costs against the Central Bank and seven other companies.
In addition to Ansbacher Cayman Ltd, the other companies against whom the Minister took the case were: Hamilton Ross Company Limited; Guinness and Mahon (Ireland) Limited; Guinness Mahon and company Limited (London); Henry Ansbacher Holdings plc; Cement Roadstone Holdings plc; Bank of Ireland Private Banking Ltd and Irish Intercontinental Bank.
The Central Bank argued that the Minister was not entitled under the Companies Act to seek costs against it.
It pleaded that following a High Court decision in the Greencore case in 1992 the High Court had already ruled it had no jurisdiction to make orders for costs against parties named in a report but not the primary subject of the report's investigation.
At an earlier hearing, Mr John Gordon SC, for Ansbacher Cayman Limited, said the Central Bank should meet some of the costs of the investigation.
His client, he said, had only taken over the Ansbacher bank in 1988.
Mr Gordon said the Central Bank had been aware of problems in the bank 15 years prior to that and was among the entities criticised in the report.
Counsel for the Central Bank argued at that time that the Ansbacher application was an attempt to "create a sideshow" in a bid to divert attention from Ansbacher's "clear responsibility" for costs.
It had also been argued at the earlier hearing by counsel for the Minister that the Companies Act required the Minister to defray the costs of the inspectors investigation which amounted to €3.4 million.