A DISPUTE between property investor Paddy McKillen and one of his business partners, Pádraig Drayne, over ownership of shares in the Maybourne Hotel Group in London is set to go to a full trial.
The High Court in London has ruled that a trial of the action between the men, owners of the Jervis Shopping Centre in Dublin, is necessary to resolve the dispute.
Mr Drayne took the case over a 2007 agreement in which he sold 15 per cent of Coroin, the firm behind the Claridge’s, Berkeley and Connaught hotels in London, to Mr McKillen for £14 million with loans from Anglo Irish Bank.
He secured a “stop notice” in a Milton Keynes court preventing Mr McKillen from selling a 35 per cent stake in the group until a loan charge to Anglo over the car park at the Jervis centre was redeemed.
Mr Drayne claims he is entitled to ownership over the Coroin shares because Mr McKillen failed to redeem a charge to Anglo on the car park under the 2007 deal.
He said Mr McKillen had asked him at that time to keep the share transaction private between them. The men are related by marriage.
Mr McKillen had applied to Mr Justice Coulson in the UK court to discharge Mr Drayne's stop notice, claiming Mr Drayne had no beneficial interest in the shares. The judge was unable to rule on the matter on the evidence before him. He said he could not see why there could not be a full trial within three to six months, if the parties cannot reach an agreement, according to UK property magazine Estates Gazette.
Mr McKillen has taken a separate legal action in the UK against brothers David and Frederick Barclay, who control 64 per cent of the group, over their attempts to take full ownership.
