The liquidator currently winding up a Cork-based firm that was a key part of the now collapsed Dolphin property group has been found to have acted negligently in bringing High Court proceedings as part of a separate liquidation.

The High Court ruled that Limerick-based accountant Anthony Fitzpatrick had breached his duty of care to a Galway restaurant firm by bringing an application to court that was “doomed to fail”.

Fitzpatrick’s application for various reliefs against the 78-year-old owner of a Galway restaurant building, John O’Sullivan, and the former acting general manager of the restaurant, Geraldine Lyons, had been previously refused by Mr Justice David Keane.

O’Sullivan and Lyons are seeking an order against Fitzpatrick personally for costs of the application. In response to queries Fitzpatrick said he was in the process of appealing the case: “I am advised by my legal team that it is wholly unsafe. In their opinion it would not be advisable to publish any extracts from same at this time.”

He had been appointed liquidator of Elvertex Ltd in February 2019, which operated the Galleon Restaurant in Galway. It had gone into arrears on rent and ceased trading. O’Sullivan subsequently terminated the lease and entered a new lease with Lyons who reopened the restaurant.

Elvertex had entered into a deed of renunciation with O’Sullivan to facilitate the new lease with Lyons. But as liquidator of Elvertex, Fitzpatrick contended this deed was invalid, claiming it gave O’Sullivan unfair preference over that company’s creditors.

Fitzpatrick, whose solicitor in the case was Herbert Kilcline, argued there had been no valid termination of the previous lease and so the restaurant building remained an asset of Elvertex. He had sought four reliefs from the court including the delivery of the property to the liquidator, or a sum of €55,000, as well as the surrender of €7,500 as the value of the company’s stock.

“I conclude that Mr Fitzpatrick has breached the duty of care that he owes to the company as its liquidator in bringing and, to a still greater degree, in maintaining the present application,” said Justice Keane in his ruling.

Fitzpatrick’s actions had “amounted to negligence, disentitling him to have recourse to the assets of the company to discharge either his own costs or those awarded against him in favour of Mr O’Sullivan Snr and Ms Lyons”.

“This is not a case of mistake; Mr Fitzpatrick still contends as he has from the outset,​​​​​​as he has from the outset, that he is entitled to the orders he seeks on the evidence he has adduced.”

Fitzpatrick is also currently undertaking another high-profile liquidation, that of Cork-based R E Administration Ltd, previously Dolphin International Group (DIG).

It was placed in voluntary liquidation in October 2019 and Fitzpatrick was appointed liquidator. He said his investigations “are continuing”.

The Sunday Independent previously reported that DIG banking records from July 2019 showed a payment to him from DIG of €61,500.

Sunday Independent