LIAM CARROLL’S heavily insolvent Zoe property group has told the High Court the wider public interest is “at the forefront” of its unique second bid to secure court protection against crucial companies being wound up by ACCBank.
The court will decide on Thursday whether or not to appoint an examiner.
The Zoe application is predicated on “some hope over despair” for the wider economy and property market and there was now enough evidence to support appointing Ray Jackson as examiner, counsel for Zoe said.
In the 19 years since court examinership laws were introduced to save the Goodman beef companies, never before was there a case where the wider public interest was “so much to the fore” although the public itself were not represented, Bill Shipsey SC argued.
ACC, which is owed €136 million, insisted the support of the vast majority of Zoe’s other banker creditors on court protection has to be seen against the likelihood of at least half of the group’s bank loans being transferred to Nama. That prospect was “light years removed” from the objective of the laws allowing for court protection of companies, Rossa Fanning, for ACC, said.
Mr Shipsey said the aims of Nama appeared to be “on all fours” with proposals in Zoe’s survival plan allowing time for the markets to stabilise so as to enhance property asset values for the benefit of the companies and banks.
Mr Justice Frank Clarke will rule this Thursday on the application by seven key Zoe companies, on whose survival the entire 51-company group depends.
