THE NATIONAL Asset Management Agency has intensified its legal efforts to seize international assets from bankrupt developer Ray Grehan by seeking to enter its judgment of €270 million last year from the Irish courts in the US.
Documents filed in the New York State Supreme Court show the State loans agency sought to enter the judgment for $351 million, the US dollar equivalent of the Irish court judgment, against the developer at the end of March.
The filings say Nama subsidiary National Asset Loan Management sought the Irish judgment to be enforced in the US on March 28th, 2012, or as soon as its application could be heard. There have been no further filings in relation to the US proceedings since March.
Nama took legal action in New York in December securing a court order against Mr Grehan to stop the sale of an apartment at the Centria Condominiums on West 48th Street near the Rockefeller Centre in Manhattan.
Mr Grehan was also the subject of a legal action taken by the State loans agency in Canada to block the sale of a suite and related units at the Residences at the Ritz Carlton in Toronto.
Nama had claimed in the court action that the €1.3 million property had been transferred to a company eight days after it secured the judgment against Mr Grehan in the Commercial Court in Dublin.
The State agency subsequently secured a worldwide freezing order against the developer, also in December, preventing him from selling any of his properties.
On December 30th last, Mr Grehan filed for bankruptcy in the UK where the system is more lenient and where he can emerge with a fresh financial start in a year.
Last November, Nama stopped Mr Grehan selling a £5.6 million apartment at a Hyde Park development in London by obtaining an injunction in the UK courts.
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