Restaurateur Peter White and members of family sued over debts of €5.6m

Businessman and restaurateur Peter White, other members of his family and a company are being sued at the Commercial Court over alleged non payment of commercial loans and debts now amounting to more than €5.6 million.

Mr Justice Robert Haughton on Monday admitted four sets of proceedings brought by Feniton Property Finance Designated Activity Company against Peter White, his wife Alicia, their son Trevor White, former publisher of The Dubliner magazine , and Susan Jane White, cookbook author and wife of Trevor.

The court was told the cumulative amount of debt sued for across the four sets of proceedings is €5.67 million.

The claim arises in the main out of an alleged breach of a settlement agreement entered into in May 2017 in relation to a number of loan facilities advanced years previously, Rossa Fanning SC, for Feniton, said.

The settlement agreement had allowed for “a lot of debt forgiveness”, counsel said.

He said the agreement was breached in September. 2017 when a payment of €4m was not made.

At issue in the case is a house at Mountpleasant Square, Ranelagh, Dublin where Trevor White lives with his wife Susan Jane and their two children.

The fund claims the house is owned by a trust, the Mountpleasant Settlement, whose trustees are Trevor White and his parents.

Vacant possession of the house is sought in the claim for judgment against the trustees.

All four cases relate to different loan facilities advanced by Bank of Scotland Ireland Ltd to the Peter, Alicia and Trevor White, the trustees,and a company, Dublin Land Securities, Wellington Road, Dublin, at different dates from 2005.

The loans were later transferred to Feniton.

Feniton claims that, in May, 2017, a settlement agreement was reached where certain payments would be made.

It claims a payment of €4 million was required to be paid by September 28th, 2017 and a further payment of €2.1 million by the end of 2017.

It is claimed there was failure to pay the €4 million due by September 28th, 2017.

A receiver was appointed to a number of properties which were security for the loan facilities.

A property at St Stephen’s Green was later sold for €4.8 million and a house at Wellington Road, Ballsbridge was sold for €2.9 million.

A receiver was also appointed to the house at Mountpleasant Square, Ranelagh, home to Trevor and Susan Jane White and their children.

It is claimed Trevor White and his wife have remained in the Mounpleasant Square house in alleged breach of the terms of the mortgage and settlement agreement.

In an affidavit, Susan Jane White objected to the proceedings being admitted to the Commercial Court.

Ms White said the family have made various improvements to the house at Mountpleasant Square including €15,000 worth of landscaping and a wooden playhouse on stilts for their children at a cost of €2,000, as well as planting a vegetable and herb garden as a “learning centre” for their growing family.

Ms White, whose book The Virtuous Tart was an Irish bestseller, said she designed and created by hand a working kitchen in the basement of their home which has become the centre of both her home and professional life.

She said she has no indebtedness in relation to the house, her husband was living there when she met him and he had proposed to her in the house.

The cases come back before the Commercial Court next January.