Blackrock Clinic co-founder disqualified from being director for 10 years

The High Court has made orders disqualifying a co-founder of the Blackrock Clinic private hospital group and his wife from being company directors.

Mr Justice Michael Quinn imposed a 10-year director disqualification on retired surgeon Dr Joseph Sheehan (77) and a sanction lasting 7½ years on his wife Norah Sheehan (73).

The liquidator of their company Blackrock Medical Partners Ltd (BMPL), Myles Kirby, represented by David Whelan and Hayes Solicitors, made the application to the High Court this week.

The couple, who live in Illinois in the United States, did not appear in court, but Dr Sheehan had previously denied any wrongdoing.

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BMPL was formed in 2000 to develop the Galway Clinic private medical facility and, until 2020, it had a 25 per cent shareholding in Marpole Ltd, the operating company of the Galway Clinic.

In a sworn statement, Mr Kirby, of Kirby Healy Chartered Accountants, said he had identified a number of transactions he believed “to be entirely improper and to constitute a fraud on the company and its creditors”.

Among these was an alleged series of five payments totalling €2.6 million, made in early 2020, to people or entities seemingly connected with the firm, which the liquidator said seemed to have been made with a view to putting the money out of reach of creditors.

In February 2020, Larry Goodman’s Parma Investments Ltd was granted an order to freeze certain of BMPL’s assets, after expressing concerns the company might seek to dissipate its recently acquired assets before meeting the costs of its failed 2016 High Court battle against Parma over control of the Galway Clinic.

The court heard then that BMPL had allegedly recently come into funds of several million euro following a sale by a receiver of BMPL’s shares in Marpole to Parma. BMPL was ordered to pay some €800,000 to Parma and the other defendants in that case.

It appeared to Mr Kirby that BMPL had received €3.25 million on January 17th, 2020, from the receiver’s sale of its Marpole shares.

It seems that between January 20th and February 6th of that year, prior to the freezing order, the entire sum was transferred to various individuals and entities, he said. Mr Kirby said he believed at least €2.6 million of this was transferred to persons or entities in some way connected to BMPL.

The liquidator was also of the opinion that the company was insolvent “for some time prior” to the winding-up petition, which was brought by Parma in January 2021.

He said he has not seen any evidence that BMPL consistently maintained sufficient books and records to allow its financial position to be ascertained and there was an “almost complete absence of records” relating to the transactions he took issue with.

Mr Kirby said the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement agreed with his opinion that disqualification proceedings were appropriate for the directors.

The liquidator said he had also commenced proceedings in the US aimed at obtaining information about what became of the €2.5 million that was allegedly dissipated from BMPL.