A company whose beneficial owner is a trust created by businessman John Coote was told by the High Court yesterday that unless €635,000 was paid over to Mr Coote's former wife, Australian MP Andrea Coote, by late yesterday, judgment in that amount would be entered against the company.
Payment of the €635,000 was one of the terms of settlement of legal proceedings brought by Ms Coote against Thameside Holdings Limited, a company based in Guernsey, whose assets include the Bellamont Forest estate at Cootehill, Co Cavan. The estate includes an 18th century manor house and parkland estimated to be worth some €11 million.
Under the settlement between Ms Coote and Thameside, which was received by the court last February but details of which were not disclosed, Thameside was directed to pay Ms Coote €635,000 by May 12th, 2005.
Yesterday, Bill Shipsey SC, for Ms Coote, told Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan, the money had not at that point been paid. In the event of non-payment by close of yesterday, Ms Coote was entitled to judgment in that amount, the court directed.
Mr Coote, the founder and principal designer of Coote Hill International and the founder of Coote Hill Design in New York, married his wife in 1974 but the couple divorced in the 1990s. They have three children, two daughters and a son. The legal proceedings initiated by Ms Coote centred on her claim that she was entitled to an interest in the Bellamont Estate.
The dispute over the estate has been underway for some 13 years. The manor house on the estate, Bellamont Forest, is regarded as one of the finest examples of Palladian architecture in Ireland. It passed in and out of the Coote family's hands until it was bought by a trust in the late 1980s.
In her proceedings, Ms Coote had argued that the assets of Thameside included Bellamont Forest house and the lands on the estate. She argued she was entitled to a declaration that she was beneficially entitled to an interest in the assets of Thameside.
It is understood that a number of "agreements" were reached in the 1990s between Mr and Ms Coote and that the settlement of the proceedings involved a payment of €635,000 by yesterday.
In a defence, it was argued that the beneficial owner of the shares in Thameside was John Coote who in 1988 caused a trust to be created for his son, Angus Coote. It was stated that Mr Coote made a gift of his beneficial interest in Thameside to the trust.