Slump drives increase in court cases

THERE WERE 192 new cases admitted to the Commercial Court in the first five months of the year, compared to 243 in the whole of last year.

The court, which hears commercial cases with a value of €1 million and upwards, has seen a steady increase in demand for its services as a result of the sharp downturn in the economy.

The court was established in January 2004 to facilitate the speedy hearing of commercial disputes. New figures given by the court to The Irish Times show the average case this year was disposed of within 24 weeks. Since the court was established the average period has been 21 weeks – faster than comparable courts in Belfast and London.

In its first year, the court disposed of 27 cases. The corresponding figures for the years since then were 53, 109, 173 and 205. The court, which is presided over by Mr Justice Peter Kelly, has managed to conclude 50 per cent of its cases in less than 35 weeks. The key factor in the court is that the cases are managed by the judge. Cases of comparable size outside the commercial court tend to go at a pace that is dictated by the parties involved, and can take years to reach conclusion.

The court saw a significant number of specific performance cases in the immediate wake of the downturn where parties to land sale agreements who had not been able to source the funding for the deals were brought to court by the vendors who were seeking to enforce the contracts. This category of case has now largely abated, according to one source.

More recently the banks have been making heavy use of the court to seek judgments arising from personal guarantees given when loans were being granted to development companies.

Such summary judgments can be achieved within three weeks of being entered into the court’s list.

Also, recently, the court has begun to hear more cases involving disputes between property developers.

As well as Mr Justice Kelly, Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan works exclusively on commercial court cases.

People given judgments in their favour can place judgment mortgages on the assets of those who are the subject of the orders. There have also recently been applications for European application orders, which target assets held abroad, and increased cross-examination of judgment debtors as to their assets.