High Court proceedings over a re-possession order on former Smart Telecom CEO Oisin Fanning's luxury home have been adjourned indefinitely after a judge was told it should not trouble the court again.
Last January, Mr Fanning failed to stop Anglo Irish Bank's securing a re-possession order on Forenaghts House, in Naas, Co Kildare, over his alleged failure to keep up payments on an €8m loan.
But Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne allowed a three-month delay on the enforcement of the possession order on the basis that Mr Fanning make a €400,000 interest repayment by the end of April on the loan.
If he did so, the judge said she would consider extending that delay to allow Mr Fanning look at ways of meeting his debt either through the sale of Forenaghts and/or through the impending sale of a property in France.
Margaret Heneghan, counsel for the bank, told the judge the 'matter is spent' and the only order they required was for the case to be adjourned generally, but with liberty to re-enter it if required. There was consent between the parties to this order and it 'should not trouble
the court again,' counsel said.
Ms Justice Dunne said she would grant the order with a rider that there would be liberty to apply to the court by either parties.
In her ruling last January, Ms Justice Dunne found that although Anglo Irish gave the loan to Mr Fanning to allow him buy €5m worth of shares in Smart Telecom and to re-finance a €2.9m loan on Forenaghts, the loan had been secured on his home.
She rejected Mr Fanning's claim that the loan was given on the basis of assurances from businessman Brendan Murtagh, who took over Smart in 2006, that the company would repay it.
She ruled against an application from Mr Fanning to adjourn the re-possession matter until separate proceedings in relation to the purchase of the shares were fully litigated.
The bank was entitled to an order for possession because this was a commercial loan which had to be repaid over 12 months and it was clearly intended that it would be funded by the €5m investment in Smart which unfortunately did not work out, the judge said.
