A landowner and a consultant are in dispute over plans that were drawn up for a whiskey distillery on a site in north Co Dublin, the Commercial Court heard.
James McNally, of Naul, Co Dublin, is the owner of the site in Stephenstown, Balbriggan, which he says he got as an inheritance.
He says he has entered into an agreement to sell it to Wyoming, US-registered Harvest Lodge Distilleries LLC.
But, he says, the deal has been stalled because the consultant who prepared the drawings and planning application for the distillery, Andrew Cassidy trading as Cassidy Consultants, is claiming to have an interest in the lands.
This arose, Mr McNally says in an affidavit, out of a 2018 agreement between Mr Cassidy and Harvest Lodge to provide architectural services in relation to a planning application for the whiskey distillery and business campus on the property. Mr McNally says Harvest Lodge paid Mr Cassidy a total of some €650,000.
Planning permission was granted in February 2023 with Mr McNally having to provide a letter of consent for planners to say he was the owner of the land.
Last March, he says, he reached agreement in principle with Harvest Lodge to sell the property for €11 million with a closing date of this month (May).
In April, Mr Cassidy’s solicitor asserted an interest in the property on behalf of Mr Cassidy, it was claimed.
A fee for his services of €900,000 was claimed along with a claim that a valuation would have to carried out on Mr Cassidy’s intellectual property rights in relation to the drawings he prepared for the planning application.
On Monday, the Commercial Court heard that the defendant was asserting that he had a 5 per cent entitlement to the value of the development based on his intellectual property rights. Mr McNally denies there is any such right.
Mr Justice Mark Sanfey adjourned an application to have the case entered into the fast track commercial list for a week to allow the defendant file an affidavit in response to the entry application.
Mr McNally is asking the court for a declaration that the defendant has no legal or equitable interest in the property so that he can proceed with the sale to Harvest Lodge.
