The owners of the former Nemo Rangers development site in Cork are claiming more than €20 million damages against members of the Wexford family haulage firm Nolan Transport over an injunction preventing disposal of the lands over seven years.
The Nolans dispute that Dildar IOM and Dildar Ireland are entitled to damages on such a scale.
In a recently published judgment, Mr Justice Michael Twomey rejected Dildar’s bid to prevent the Nolans pursuing certain pleas in a forthcoming High Court inquiry concerning the level of damages.
The inquiry follows a 2024 High Court decision, upheld by the Court of Appeal, rejecting much of the Nolans’ case aimed at establishing their beneficial ownership of the lands.
RM Block
An aspect of the action was against Paul Kenny, his son Dillon Kenny and his nephew Darren Kenny over a claim of beneficial ownership, through Dildar, of the lands that the Nolans claimed was bought with €2.8 million of their pension funds without their knowledge.
The Kennys denied the claims and counterclaimed against the Nolans.
The Nolans got an injunction in July 2017 restraining Dildar IOM disposing of the lands, to apply pending the outcome of what Mr Justice Twomey described as “very long and exceptionally complicated” litigation.
In January 2024, the High Court, after dismissing the claims against the Kennys and Dildar, discharged the injunction and ordered an inquiry into damages sustained by Dildar as a result of not being able to sell or develop the site from 2017 to 2024.
The Nolans had undertaken in 2017 to pay damages should it transpire the injunction should not have been granted.
Dildar later applied to Mr Justice Twomey to strike out four pleas raised by the Nolans in opposing its claim for €20.8 million damages, arguing the pleas were either irrelevant or related to issues decided in the main judgment.
The Nolans argued the pleas were highly relevant to the likelihood of Dildar IOM, a company with no history or experience in property development, getting funding to develop the lands bought in 2013 for about €2.8 million. They completely rejected Dildar’s claim it had lost anything close to €20.8 million.
The Nolans also pleaded an expert report on behalf of Dildar did not demonstrate that Dildar IOM would have got funding in light of the involvement of members of the Kenny family. Paul and John Kenny were indebted to the National Asset Management Agency, it said.
Mr Justice Twomey’s reasons for refusing to strike out the four pleas included that Dildar itself wanted to rely on any evidence adduced at the trial to support its damages claim.
Dildar, he also noted, had pleaded that, under a loan agreement effective in June 2013, Clear Vision Solutions Holdings Inc had agreed to lend Dildar IOM €3.3 million towards purchase and development of the site.
Dildar IOM agreed to execute a charge over the site to secure repayment of that.
The fact there is no charge on the site now raises further questions for a “prudent lender” and cannot be ignored in the damages inquiry, the judge said.
There was “other uncertainty” regarding the beneficial ownership of the site because, in a counterclaim in the main case, it was alleged the site was beneficially owned by Dildar IOM or by Darren Kenny and Dillon Kenny, he said. That claims was ultimately struck out as the Kennys gave no evidence at the trial, he said.
In this application, Dildar had said the Kenny defendants had lost control of their own company, a reference to Dildar IOM, he said.
The fact some of the issues raised in the Nolans’ pleas regarding unlawful actions of agents acting for the defendants were dealt with at trial did not mean they may not be relevant to the damages inquiry, he added.
