Property developer Liam Carroll is being personally sued for €60m by Irish Nationwide Building Society arising from guarantees over loans made to his company Aifca Ltd.
The proceedings by INBS against Mr Carroll and Aifca, Upper Mount Street, Dublin, were admitted to the Commercial Court today by Mr Justice Peter Kelly.
Lawyers for Mr Carroll and Aifca said he would be contending that the guarantee under which the INBS is claiming €60m had expired because a certain security was put in place, meaning the guarantee was for a lesser amount of €30m.
The judge fixed July 17 for hearing the INBS application for summary judgement for the amounts sought.
INBS claims Mr Carroll had executed an 'irrevocable' guarantee on September 29 2006 guaranteeing payment of all liabilities of Aifca to INBS up to €60m.
On the basis of that guarantee and subject to the terms of a commercial mortgage agreement, INBS claims it granted and maintained a term loan facility to Aifca for €66.5m and that some €78.6m was now due and owing by Aifca under that facility.
It claims the facility allowed Aifca to refinance loan facilities previously provided to it by Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Ltd and was also to enable Aifca purchase the entire share capital of Lowe Taverns (Tallaght) Ltd.
INBS claims the repayment of the loan facility was to be made on demand or within the two-year period of the loan, but Aifca and Mr Carroll had failed to repay the money.
In an affidavit, Tom McMenamin, Commercial Lending Manager with INBS, said the Society had - in letters of January 30 and April 14 last - called on Mr Carroll to repay the €60m sum. He said some €78.6m, including interest to date, was now due and owing by Aifca.
Mr McMenamin said he and the then INBS chief executive Michael Fingleton had met Mr Carroll on December 8 2008. He said Mr Carroll had said he could deal with €30m of the guarantee in 2009 and also confirmed that AIB and Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Ltd had the largest exposure arising from his developments and he needed their support to resolve his problems.
A statement of affairs for Mr Carroll and his wife Roisin at October 31 2008 supplied to INBS had shown assets of €259.5m and bank debt of some €149m.
