NAMA SUES SEAN DUNNE IN THE US OVER PROCEEDS FROM HOUSE SALES - NAMA HAS launched a legal action in the US against Sean Dunne, the property developer dubbed the "Baron of Ballsbridge" for his spectacular punts on Dublin hotels. The case is understood to be part of state-controlled NAMA's efforts to recover some of the €185m Mr Dunne was ordered to repay by courts here back in March, says the Irish Independent. A spokesman for NAMA last night declined to comment because the case is now before the courts in America. Weekend reports said a hearing is due to go ahead in October. Mr Dunne, who is based in the US, could not be reached for comment. The latest action comes after a luxury US house linked to Mr Dunne's wife Gayle Killilea was sold for $5.5m (€4.4m) in recent weeks. The property is located in one of the wealthiest and most exclusive neighbourhoods in the entire US - Belle Haven in Greenwich, Connecticut, which is home to hedge-fund billionaires and Wall Street titans. Singer Diana Ross also stays there. Sean Dunne, who moved to the US two years ago after his Irish businesses collapsed, always denied owning the controversial property. It has been listed in US documents as the home of his wife, and neighbours in the wealthy suburb say both Dunnes were involved in a $1m (€813,697) renovation. The property "trustee" named in the sale documents for the house at 38 Bush Avenue is Thomas J Heagney, Ms Killilea's US lawyer. Whoever owns the house made a $2.5m (€2.03m) profit when it was sold last July.
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PENSIONERS SUE GLANBIA FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT - A group that includes many of its former managers plans to take food company Glanbia to the High Court in the latest round of a dispute over pension increases. The former managers and technicians have been in dispute with the company since it stopped paying a 3.5% increase to their pensions last January, writes the Irish Times. They say the annual increase was part of a deal agreed in the early 1990s, in return for sacrificing other benefits and pay increases while they were still working. Yesterday, the pensioners confirmed they had begun High Court proceedings against Glanbia over the weekend. The company also confirmed it had received “notification of legal proceedings” from the retirees. The pensioners are suing Glanbia for breach of contract. They say the company paid the increase until January of this year, when it stopped doing so. A spokesman for them said the pensioners were particularly disappointed at the failure of Glanbia’s senior executives to honour the contract. He claimed that when the company was in financial difficulty in the early 1990s they were the only workers who responded to a management plea for pay restraint.
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CORK REFINERY SET TO GET BARRYROE OIL FLOW - Oil from the 1 billion-barrel Barryroe field is likely to be piped to Whitegate refinery in Cork. The field is owned by Providence Resources, and its technical director John O’Sullivan has indicated that a pipeline with a fixed platform is the most likely option to be employed to recover the oil. The Irish Examiner says this would result in the oil being pumped about 70km to the Phillips 66 Whitegate Oil Refinery. This is the only oil refinery in Ireland and supplies one third of the country’s transportation fuels. The refinery began operations in 1959 and it processes 71,000 barrels of crude oil a day - 3m tonnes a year. In an interview with Upstream, a weekly oil and gas newspaper, Mr O’Sullivan suggested the Barryroe oilfield, 50km off the Cork coast, was likely to be developed using "a jacket and pipeline". He also said that the explorer, which holds an 80% stake in the Celtic Sea play, was expecting the results of a review by British-based project engineering specialists of 18 to 20 development options in the next few weeks. He said that no decision had yet been taken and that Irish regulatory authorities would have a say, but said the geographical and technical situation would dictate that a fixed platform was the most likely scenario.
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SPANISH COMMERCIAL PROPERTY ON THE BRINK - The Spanish and Italian commercial property markets have all but collapsed with the number of transactions in both countries falling more than 90% in the three months to July as investors worry about the future of the eurozone. Only three property transactions were registered in Spain during the second quarter, down from 58 deals in the previous quarter, writes the Financial Times. In Italy the slide was even more pronounced, with just two buildings being traded during the period, down from 56, according to data from Real Capital Analytics. The severity of the decline highlights investors’ concerns about the risk of owning fixed assets in the two countries given the uncertain direction of the eurozone economy. The total value of transactions for offices, shops and industrial property in Spain was €67m for the second quarter, down 74% from €260m in the first quarter. The inactivity meant Spanish property transactions were below those of neighbouring Portugal for the first time. “Heightened risk aversion, particularly among cross-border institutional investors, has led to an almost complete collapse in southern European acquisitions,” said Joseph Kelly, director of market analysis at RCA. In Italy, a few property sectors, such as the Milan retail space market, had held up well during the downturn. However, growing concern over the country’s economy and its future position in the eurozone appear to have snuffed out investor confidence across the market.
