Business

Bakery operator waged ‘malicious’ vendetta against council and liquidator of his business

Decobake Ltd went into liquidation because it was insolvent and following failure to pay more than €70,000 in rates to DCC

The case was before the High Court in Dublin

Thu Mar 16 2023 - 20:04

A bakery operator who waged a “malicious and unacceptable vendetta” was “a person who will stop at nothing and say whatever he wants regardless of the effect it might have” on others, a High Court judge has said.

The comments were made by Mr Justice Brian Cregan about Paul Coyle, whose “appalling litany of behaviour” was waged against the liquidator of his business, Decobake, and against agents and officials of Dublin City Council which got the liquidator appointed following a failure to pay business rates.

The judge ordered that Mr Coyle, and his wife Margaret, who had “allied herself to her husband in this utterly unmeritorious campaign”, can no longer bring legal proceedings without the leave of the court. The liquidator, Declan De Lacy, and the council had sought the order, known as an Isaac Wunder Order.

The Coyles had imposed costs running into hundreds of thousands on the taxpayers of Dublin by their “entirely unmeritorious court cases”, all of which had been dismissed, the judge said.

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Decobake Ltd was put into liquidation because it was insolvent and following a failure to pay more than €70,000 in rates to Dublin City Council for its Bachelors Walk premises.

When the city sheriff’s agents went to the premises in December 2016 to seize assets to pay the rates debt, they were confronted by what Mr Justice Cregan said was “a number of aggressive and physically intimidating individuals who had clearly been retained by Mr Coyle”. The sheriff’s agents withdrew for their own safety.

The council eventually successfully petitioned to have the company wound up and this was opposed by the Coyles.

The High Court put the company into liquidation and appointed Mr de Lacy as liquidator in July 2017. The Coyles appealed and it was rejected.

The liquidator then had to seek an injunction preventing the Coyles from interfering with the liquidation, including attending at one of the company’s other premises in Clane, Co Kildare, and refusing to leave, necessitating the gardaí being called.

There followed what the judge said was “a litany of further motions” to the court issued by Mr Coyle seeking to set aside the winding up, and remove Mr DeLacy.

Further hearings followed, and in February 2020, the High Court dismissed Mr Coyle’s applications and said he had “set out to avoid, frustrate, hinder, impede and delay the liquidation of Decobake Ltd at every turn”.

He lodged an appeal against this decision, which was also rejected.

The liquidator said that, as a result of the numerous applications and motions by Mr Coyle, “significant legal costs” have been incurred and have substantially depleted any funds that would otherwise have been available to satisfy creditor debts.

The liquidator believed the only way to stop further litigation by the Coyles was through an Isaac Wunder order.

The judge said Mr Coyle continued to make baseless allegations of criminality against the liquidator and against a council agent and its lawyers. He also sent vulgar and abusive emails to other council staff, he said.

Mr Coyle did not address the specifics of the Isaac Wunder application but sought to put in various other motions including seeking discovery, case management and an “entirely contrived” adjournment, he said.

There were good grounds for believing the Coyles will issue further proceedings if not restrained, he said.

He also had regard to the “unbridled nature of the allegations” made by Mr Coyle; and the “scurrilous and unfounded statements which he has made including allegations of fraud against the parties to the litigation and their legal representatives.”

Mr Coyle’s entire conduct throughout this litigation was “indefensible and scandalous”. He and his wife “waged an incessant war on the liquidator and Dublin City Council because of their company’s flagrant refusal to pay local taxes”, he said.

As well as the costs of their unmeritorious cases against the city council, it had meant there were less funds available in the liquidation to pay creditors of the company, he said.

Mr Coyle had “no compunction about making utterly unfounded allegations of fraud, theft, and corruption against the liquidator, employees of Dublin City Council and the legal representatives of those bodies without any regard to the effect it might have on them.

“His allegations are not only scandalous but completely unacceptable,” he said.

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