THE HIGH Court in London has upheld its decision to overturn a bankruptcy declaration made against property developer Tom McFeely following an appeal by a trustee.
The trustee appointed to deal with Mr McFeely’s bankruptcy after the declaration was made in January applied for a review of Mrs Justice Sonia Proudman’s decision to overturn that order last month.
However, Mrs Justice Proudman on Wednesday rejected the appeal by the trustee on the grounds that he had been given notice of the legal bid by one of Mr McFeely’s house buyers, Dubliner Theresa McGuinness.
Mr Miller had attended that hearing “midway”, said the judge, adding that accordingly it was “impermissible to allow the trustee a second bite of the cherry”.
Mr McFeely, who attended Wednesday’s hearing, supported the application by Mr Miller to have the bankruptcy stayed, rather than rescinded.
A stay on the bankruptcy order would interfere with Mrs McGuinness’s bid to have him bankrupted in Ireland. Her creditor’s petition will be heard by the High Court in Dublin later this month.
Mr McFeely, a former IRA member and H-Block hunger striker sentenced for shooting an RUC man, claimed previously he was a British subject who should not be subjected to Ireland’s “punitive” bankruptcy rules.
He was declared bankrupt in January on his own petition but Mrs McGuinness successfully overturned this when the High Court in London learned she had lodged a petition in Dublin to have him bankrupted there.
Mr McFeely had failed to disclose this fact at the London hearing, even though, said the judge, he had faced “a duty of full disclosure” when he made his ex-parte application in January and had “not informed the registrar on the presentation of his bankruptcy petition that a bankruptcy petition had been presented in the High Court in the Republic a few days earlier”.
This failure was “enough to justify the rescission of the bankruptcy order”, she said, adding that it had not been open to Mr McFeely to “forum shop” – to decide the best place for him to become a bankrupt.
Under EU law, the court which first receives a bankruptcy petition is the one supposed to decide on an individual’s “centre of main interest”.
