Pasrm Ltd v Companies Acts 2014

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Court: High Court
• Judge: Mr Justice Mark Sanfey
• Judgment Date: 26 August 2024
• Neutral Citation: [2024] IEHC 529
• Docket Number: [Record No. 2020/341COS]

In the Matter of Pasrm Limited

and

In the Matter of Section 212 of the Companies Acts, 2014

and

In the Matter of the Companies Acts, 1963–2014

Between

Neal Cyr

Applicant

and

Planitas Airline Systems Limited, Luke Mooney, Philip Connell, Brendan Delaney and Pasrm Limited

Respondents

[2024] IEHC 529

[Record No. 2020/341COS]

THE HIGH COURT

JUDGMENT of Mr Justice Mark Sanfey delivered on the 26 ^th day of August 2024 .

1 . In a judgment delivered on 22 March 2023, reported at [2023] IEHC 149, I refused the respondents' application pursuant to O.29, r.1 of the Rules of the Superior Courts and/or the inherent jurisdiction of the court for a direction that the applicant provide security for costs for the respondents' costs of the proceedings. At the conclusion of that judgment, I invited submissions from the respondents in the event that they considered that I should make any order in relation to costs other than an order in favour of the applicant. The respondents duly proffered written submissions, and the applicant, in accordance with the court's direction, responded with his own submissions.

2 . The respondents consider that the appropriate order in relation to the costs of the security for costs application is that those costs should be costs in the cause. The respondents fairly concede that, in accordance with the requirements of O.99, r.2(3) of the Rules of the Superior Courts, the issue of costs can be determined at this juncture rather than reserved to the trial judge.

3 . The respondents accept that s.169(1) of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 governs the issue of costs, particularly as O.99, r.3 provides that the High Court shall have regard to the matters set out in that sub-section. They rely particularly on s.169(1)(b), by which the court is entitled, in deciding whether to order otherwise than costs following the event, to consider “whether it was reasonable for a party to raise, pursue or contest one or more issues in the proceedings”.

4 . A number of grounds are advanced by the respondents as to why the court should conclude that costs should not follow the event. They acknowledge that the application required the court to be satisfied that the applicant resided outside the jurisdiction or EU/Lugano Convention countries; that the respondents had to establish a prima facie defence; and that there were no special circumstances such that the court should not grant security.

5 . The respondents make the point that they succeeded on the first two of these grounds, but that “the outcome of the motion turned on special circumstances”. It was suggested that the court's exercise of its discretion in this latter regard “turned, per para. 152, on an inference”. It was suggested that various arguments made by the applicant regarding the context of an oppression application (paras. 15 to 19 of his submissions) and proportionality (paras. 10 to 14 of his submissions) were rejected by the court.

6 . The respondents also suggest that, in all the circumstances, “it was both reasonable to bring the motion and to contest the various points made in response by Mr Cyr”.

7 . An application for security for costs is, as the respondents acknowledge, “a discrete matter which will not be revisited at the trial of the action”. A defendant applying for the order is unlikely to make the application unless it is confident that it can establish, at a minimum, that the plaintiff resides outside the jurisdiction or an EU/Lugano Convention country, and that it has a prima facie defence to the proceedings. The third element – whether or not there are special circumstances which the court may consider militate against the making of the order – usually...