Judge reserves decision in O’Brien mobile licence case

A High Court judge will decide if a company that lost out on a mobile phone licence in 1996 can sue Denis O'Brien, Michael Lowry and the State using money from a British litigation funder. Ms Justice Aileen Donnelly heard four days of submissions this week as part of an application by Persona Digital Telephony and Sigma Wireless Networks.

Persona has asked to be allowed to take their legal claim using funds from British company Harbour Litigation Funding. Such arrangements are typical in Britain but are barred in Ireland under the law of champerty, which forbids unrelated third parties from funding a court claim in the hope of taking a share of the proceeds of a victory.

Persona claims that Denis O'Brien's Esat Digifone consortium won a competition for a mobile phone licence in 1996 by bribing the then minister for communications Michael Lowry, which is denied. Persona was the runner-up in the licence competition.

On the final day of submissions yesterday, Paul O’Higgins SC, for Mr O’Brien, said it would be wrong to make an order allowing a breach of the law of champerty. The court was confined in what it could do and it was up to the Oireachtas to make new laws .

He added that there was no justification to the claim made by Michael Collins SC on behalf of Persona that the constitutional right of access to the courts overrode the champerty laws. He said the laws had been upheld by the Irish legislature and therefore it would be wrong to award the application made by Persona.

Niall Buckley, for Mr Lowry, said such funding arrangements were potentially harmful to the courts in that they removed the responsibility to keep a lid on legal costs.