Mahon Tribunal: One of the owners of Jackson Way has rejected a claim by tribunal lawyers that the controversial property company has no legal title to the land for which it is claiming compensation at Carrickmines in south Dublin, writes Paul Cullen.
Lawyers for solicitor Mr John Caldwell, who with businessman Mr Jim Kennedy owns Jackson Way, said the title was validly transferred to the company in the 1990s.
Last February, the tribunal heard evidence which appeared to show that the title held by Jackson Way was flawed. Tribunal lawyers suggested this meant that the company had no legal claim to the Carrickmines land.
However, yesterday Mr Ian Finlay SC, for Mr Caldwell, insisted that the legal title to the land was validly transferred from its owner in the 1980s, Mr Robert Tracey, to an Isle of Man-registered company, Paisley Park, and later to Jackson Way.
Jackson Way was last year awarded €13 million in compensation for 20 acres of its lands acquired for the south-eastern motorway. However, the company, which originally claimed €116 million, must first prove title before claiming the money from Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council.
The tribunal has resumed hearings in the Jackson Way module this week, although Mr Pádraig Flynn is scheduled to complete his evidence in the Quarryvale module on Thursday.
In February, the tribunal heard evidence from Mr Frank Friel, a solicitor who handled the conveyancing of the Carrickmines land in the 1990s.
He told Mr Des O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, that when Paisley Park was liquidated, ownership of the land passed not to Jackson Way but to a hitherto unknown Panama-registered company, Iris Development. Documents purporting to transfer the land ownership from Paisley Park to Jackson Way were invalid because they were signed by the directors of Paisley Park rather than the liquidator.
However, Mr Friel, continuing his evidence, agreed yesterday with Mr Finlay that Iris Development was not the owner of the land. Mr Finlay had earlier explained that Paisley Park had been wound up voluntarily by its members. This kind of winding up differed from an insolvency winding up. In the latter, the interests of the creditors were paramount and once a liquidator was appointed, the directors had no more function.
However, in a members' winding up, the directors could continue to act, where this was sanctioned by the members themselves or by the liquidator.
Mr O'Neill said the position as outlined in February remained the same. The situation described by Mr Finlay required two "exceptional" circumstances; either the company had to hold a general meeting and decide to allow the directors to continue to act or the liquidator had to provide authorisation.
No documentation had been produced to show either of these two courses of action had been followed and it followed that the earlier evidence remained correct.
Mr Finlay described Mr O'Neill's intervention during his cross-examination as "extraordinary" and "disturbing".
Judge Alan Mahon said he presumed Mr Finlay would proceed to establish that one of the two courses of action had occurred.
Later, Mr Finlay said he would not be producing documentation to prove this was the case, but the tribunal shouldn't take the absence of such documentation to mean that either course of action wasn't followed.
Judge Mahon said the tribunal was not interested in whether the title was good or bad but in who was the beneficial owner of the land. There would be no declaration at the end of its inquiries as to who was the legal owner of the property.