Businessman David Cullen, whose property portfolio includes the Turk’s Head Bar and Paramount Hotel in Dublin’s Temple Bar, can be sued in Ireland by the National Asset Management Agency in a bid to recover €29 million, the Commercial Court has ruled.
The fact that Mr Cullen is living in London and initiated bankruptcy proceedings there earlier this month, just months after Nama’s action got under way, did not deprive the Irish courts of jurisdiction to deal with the application to recover the €29 million in loans, Mr Justice Peter Kelly ruled.
There was no doubt the loans advanced to Mr Cullen by Bank of Ireland, and later taken over by Nama, were advanced here, were repayable here and everything pertinent to them was here, he added.
He rejected claims by Mr Cullen that there had been culpable delay by a Nama company, National Asset Loan Management Ltd, in initiating the proceedings here such as to deprive Nalm of having the case fast-tracked in the Commercial Court.
It was appropriate for Bank of Ireland and later Nalm to have engaged with Mr Cullen from 2009 concerning repayment of the loans.