Arnaud Gaultier and Sup Pliable Ltd v Mark Reilly

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Mr. Justice Cregan
• Judgment Date: 11 January 2024
• Neutral Citation: [2024] IEHC 24
• Court: High Court
• Docket Number: [2023] 1818 P

Between

Arnaud Gaultier and Sup Pliable Limited

Plaintiffs

and

Mark Reilly

First Named Defendant

Áine Mc Guigan

Second Named Defendant

and

Louise Swords

Third Named Defendant

[2024] IEHC 24

[2023] 1818 P

THE HIGH COURT

JUDGMENT (No. 2) ofMr. Justice Cregandelivered on 11th January 2024.

Introduction — The first named plaintiff's application for recusal

1 . The first named plaintiff, Mr. Gaultier, has brought a notice of motion in which he seeks a number of reliefs as follows:

• 1. An order for my recusal “by reason of subjective bias and/or lack of integrity and/or lack of competence”;

• 2. An order setting aside the “purported judgments of the Honourable Mr. Justice Cregan delivered on 16 ^th May, 2023 and 28 ^th July, 2023” by reason of subjective bias and/or lack of integrity and/or lack of competence and undue process;

• 3. An order removing the third defendant as party to the proceedings;

• 4. An order giving liberty to amend his plenary summons within 21 days;

• 5. An extension of time to file his statement of claim.

2 . In addition the following motions were also before the Court on 16 ^th November, 2023:

• (1) the first named defendant's motion to dismiss the second plaintiff's claim as against the first defendant as being frivolous, vexatious, unsustainable, bound to fail and/or an abuse of process; and

• (2) the second named defendant's motion to dismiss the first and second named plaintiffs' claims as against the second defendant, on similar grounds.

The call-over of the Chancery List – 4 May, 2023

3 . I think it is important, for the purposes of transparency, and also because of the allegations of Mr. Gaultier, that this judgment should record that I took the Chancery call-over list on Thursday 4th May, 2023 at 10.45 am, which was the normal call-over of the Chancery list on that day. Mr. Gaultier's case appeared in the list. I have since requested a transcript of the DAR of that hearing and I have arranged for this transcript to be circulated to all parties. I have read the transcript of that day's hearing. There was nothing untoward about the manner in which the matter was dealt with on that day. Mr. Gaultier did not appear at the first calling and it was put to second calling. Mr. Gaultier appeared at the second calling and indicated that he had a booklet of pleadings for the Court. The booklet of pleadings was handed into court and received by me. Mr. Gaultier indicated that his application was for injunctive relief. The defendants appeared, through counsel, and applied for an adjournment to put in replying affidavits. I directed that the defendants file affidavits within two weeks, by 15th May, 2023. Mr. Gaultier said that the matter was urgent and that he would not want to reply to these affidavits. As a result of Mr. Gaultier's request, I put the matter in for hearing on 16th May, 2023 as Mr. Gaultier stated that he was very anxious to get a hearing date as soon as possible.

4 . Having made those orders, I had no further involvement in the case until the hearing of the injunction was assigned to me – eight days later.

5 . Subsequently, on 12th May, 2023, this case was assigned to me, for hearing on Tuesday 16th May, 2023. It was assigned to me in the normal way that cases are assigned by the Chancery judge managing the list to other Chancery judges who are hearing cases in the Chancery list. Of course, it should go without saying that I did not request that this matter be assigned to me as I had never heard of Mr. Gaultier before. There was nothing untoward about the process and any suggestion by Mr. Gaultier that I sought this case because of his reputation, is unfounded. (This is dealt with in more detail below).

The plaintiffs' application for an injunction – the hearing on 16 May, 2023.

6 . On 16 ^th May, 2023, I heard the application for an interlocutory injunction brought by the first and second named plaintiffs against all three defendants. The hearing lasted the whole day. As an initial matter, the first and second named defendants objected that Mr. Gaultier had no legal authority to represent the second named plaintiff, a company owned or controlled by him. Because of the well-known rule in Battle v. Irish Art Promotion Centre Limited[1968] IR 252, and two subsequent definitive Supreme Court decisions on this matter, in Allied Irish Bank v. Aqua Fresh Fish Limited[2019] 1 IR 517 and Gaultier v. Registrar of Companies[2019] IESC 89, I delivered an ex tempore judgment on that issue on that day upholding the first and second named defendants' objections. As most of the interlocutory reliefs sought in the injunction were sought by the company, I refused those reliefs against all three defendants. I then considered the remainder of the injunctive reliefs sought by Mr. Gaultier against the third named defendant, his wife, and subsequently, in a second ex tempore judgment, I refused these reliefs also.

The plaintiff's application to revisit the judgment and the first recusal application – the hearing on 20 June, 2023.

7 . However, a few days later, Mr. Gaultier appeared in court before me on an ex parte basis, with an application (i) to ask me to revisit my ex tempore judgment and (ii) an application that I should recuse myself. As the order had not yet been perfected, I directed the plaintiff to put all parties on notice of this application and I fixed a date for the hearing of this application for Tuesday 20 ^th June, 2023. The matter was heard before me for a full day on 20 ^th June, 2023.

8 . The grounds for this application were set out in a lengthy submission filed by the first named plaintiff running to some twelve pages of which some five or six pages were devoted to submissions on why I should recuse myself in this case. I will come back to these submissions later in this judgment.

9 . Given that Mr. Gaultier had made certain criticisms of the manner in which the case had been assigned, and heard, and had made an application for recusal, I directed that a transcript of the Digital Audio Recording (“DAR”) of the hearing of the matter on 4 ^th May, 2023 (when the matter was in the Chancery call over list) and of the hearing of 16 ^th May, 2023 be prepared and a copy of the transcripts be made available to all parties.

10 . At the hearing on 20 ^th June, 2023, when I explained to Mr. Gaultier how the case had come to be listed before me, the handling of the Books of Pleadings and related matters, Mr. Gaultier withdrew his application that I should recuse myself. That left only the substantive issue as to whether I should revisit my judgment of 16 ^th May, 2023. I delivered a written judgment in this matter on 28 ^th July, 2023 and refused the application.

Hearing on 3rd October, 2023 – Costs and Directions

11 . Having delivered my judgment on 28 ^th July, 2023, I then adjourned the matter to consider the issue of costs and this matter came before me again on 3 ^rd October, 2023. Having heard the submissions of all parties in relation to costs, I decided that the first and second named defendants should be awarded their costs of the said application against Mr. Gaultier personally (such costs to be adjudicated in default of agreement).

12 . As I had also been case managing the applications of the first and second defendants to strike out the plaintiff's claims, these matters were also considered by me on 3 ^rd October, 2023. On that day I directed:

• 1. that Mr. Gaultier should have two weeks until Tuesday 17 ^th October, 2023 to file his statement of claim to which Mr. Gautier replied: “Yes that's fine, I can organise that” and, in effect, consented to that order;

• 2. that Mr. Gaultier should have four weeks, i.e. by Tuesday 31st October, to file any replying affidavit to the defendants' motions if he wished to do so;

• 3. that the defendants had one further week, until 7 ^th November, 2023 to file any replying affidavits if required; and

• 4. that the defendants' motions would be given a hearing date on Thursday 16 ^th November, 2023 and that one full day would be set aside for the hearing of these applications.

13 . I would emphasise that the defendants were understandably anxious for their motions to be heard as soon as possible and there was a canvassing of dates by the Court with the various parties as to what dates would be convenient for all parties for the hearing of these motions. Mr. Gaultier indicated that he was unavailable from 20 November, 2023 until the end of term This was clearly unsatisfactory as it meant that the defendants' motions would not be heard for the entire Michaelmas term. In the circumstances I fixed the date for hearing on 16 November, 2023. Mr. Gaultier consented to that date and never indicated that he would have any difficulties on that day.

14 . At this hearing, Mr. Gaultier also harangued me yet again about my judgment of 28 ^th July, 2023 and insisted that I had failed to address some of his submissions. I indicated to him that he had a right to appeal to the Court of Appeal and that was where those arguments should be made.

15 . Mr. Gaultier appeared to be of the view that he could not appeal my decision to the Court of Appeal if some of his submissions were not addressed in my judgment. First, of course, that submission is clearly incorrect; if Mr. Gaultier believes that any of his submissions have not been properly addressed by this Court, he can of course make this a ground of appeal to the Court of Appeal; secondly, I gave a lengthy written judgment on this matter, in which I considered all of Mr. Gaultier's arguments in relation to the matter. Therefore I do not accept his submission that some, or any, of his arguments were not addressed. I simply found his submissions devoid of merit or of substance.

16 . As set out above, on 3 ^rd October, 2023 I directed Mr. Gaultier to file a statement of claim within two weeks. This was not done. Indeed Mr....