Nolan Transport family members wanted to mask intention to use pension funds to pay debts, High Court finds

The High Court has found certain family members of the Wexford haulage firm Nolan Transport promoted an untrue story about the instability of all Irish banks to “mask their true intention” to try to use family pension funds to settle personal debts with the banks.

Mr Justice Denis McDonald made the finding in a 317-page judgment dealing with the outstanding claims by the Nolans against several other defendants since the settlement in 2022 of their action against their former solicitor Ciaran Desmond.

A week into the May 2022 hearing of the long-running case brought by the Nolans over the alleged misappropriation of their pension funds, Mr Desmond consented to judgment against him for €6.9 million.

However, there remained the cases against other defendants, including Dublin pension adviser John Millett, two of Mr Millett’s companies, and three men who claimed they were the beneficial owners of the former Nemo Rangers development land in Cork which the Nolans claimed was bought with €2.8 million of their pension funds without their knowledge.

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The three men are Paul Kenny, his son Dillon Kenny and Paul Kenny’s nephew Darren Kenny, who said they are owners through an Isle of Man company called Dildar, which owns the Nemo lands.

The Kennys and Mr Millett denied the Nolan claims.

The case was brought on behalf of 13 members of the Nolan family pension fund by its trustees: Ann, Elizabeth, Richard, Patricia and Sally Nolan and Quest Capital Trustees Ltd.

The court heard that the central allegation was that in 2013 the Nolan pension money was used (in an elaborate scheme involving a Swiss bank account in the name of a Panamanian company) as collateral to finance the purchase of investment products to be issued by a number of the third parties in Singapore.

Through a series of events, it was claimed, the bulk of their money were misappropriated, while about €2.8 million was allegedly used to buy the Nemo Rangers property.

In his judgment, Mr Justice McDonald dismissed the Nolans’ claim against the Millett defendants other than concerning the unauthorised disclosure of personal data. He directed Mr Millett to pay to each of the personal plaintiffs €500 in nominal damages regarding that unauthorised disclosure.

He dismissed all claims against the Kenny defendants and also discharged a 2017 order restraining Dildar, the Isle of Man company, from taking any steps to dispose of the Nemo Rangers property.

He also directed some €1.6 million that was paid into court from the money that remained from the investment scheme could be paid out to the plaintiffs and to any other party that establishes an entitlement to any part of them.

Earlier, the judge said he found the evidence of the two main Nolan witnesses, Richard and Patricia Nolan, to be unreliable in some important respects. He described as “utterly implausible” their original explanation that the reason for transferring was over concerns about the instability of Irish banks.

The Nolan funds were held by Investec Bank and there was no evidence to suggest that there were any concerns about its stability, he said.

He could not accept that someone with Ms Nolan’s experience of business would not have carefully read the instruction signed by her in February 2013 directing Investec to transfer €2.4 million to the Swiss account via a Dubai entity.

Her “repeated refrain” that she would sign anything put in front of her was impossible to reconcile with her long business experience or the “forceful way” she gave evidence.

“She does not present as someone who would readily or meekly sign what was put in front of her,” he said.

He described as “completely unbelievable” the evidence of both Patricia and Richard that they understood the funds were simply being placed on deposit in the Swiss bank account.

They needed a structure that would create a disconnect between the pension funds and payments to their creditor banks, he said.

“I am convinced that the plaintiffs well knew that was the reason why this unusual and elaborate structure was put in place,” he said.

Richard and Patricia both gave “untrue evidence” about certain money transfers from the pension funds to settle the personal debts when they gave evidence to a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal case dealing with a complaint about Mr Desmond, he said.

The judge was “deeply unimpressed” by how both Mr Nolan and Ms Nolan repeatedly suggested they did not know much about how the company used to make those transfers or about details of proceedings against the family by AIB and Bank of Ireland over their debts.

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