Taggart Brothers Vs Ulster Bank court case

[angermanagement]

Legally and technically they wouldn't have to pay anything from a busted company to a busted company according to the letter of company law.
But I'd like to think if they were successful here they might ...just might...be morally troubled enough to make some restitution of some kind. Even if that had to be in a personal capacity. Is that really out of the question?

Seriously? To quote a Joe brolly tweet from earlier today, what a sheltered life you must have lead up to now.

The Taggart company or multiple companies under the Taggart umbrella has went bust and with that goes the chance multiple subbies had of ever getting a penny on the various amounts owing to them.

Its always Tax man first,banks second and every one else third in these situations, by the time the first two have feasted on the carcass there is very little left.

Finally you don't know too many contractors if you think that they might be morally troubled, the level that these boys were operating at is not usually inhabited by people with with a well calibrated moral compass.

Don't forget the administrators by the time their finished there's usually not much left for the banks or the taxman their always in a win win.

[gallsman]

Legally and technically they wouldn't have to pay anything from a busted company to a busted company according to the letter of company law.
But I'd like to think if they were successful here they might ...just might...be morally troubled enough to make some restitution of some kind. Even if that had to be in a personal capacity. Is that really out of the question?

Seriously? To quote a Joe brolly tweet from earlier today, what a sheltered life you must have lead up to now.

The Taggart company or multiple companies under the Taggart umbrella has went bust and with that goes the chance multiple subbies had of ever getting a penny on the various amounts owing to them.

Its always Tax man first,banks second and every one else third in these situations, by the time the first two have feasted on the carcass there is very little left.

Finally you don't know too many contractors if you think that they might be morally troubled, the level that these boys were operating at is not usually inhabited by people with with a well calibrated moral compass.

Is it? In Ireland the insolvency queue is generally fixed charged holders, then the liquidators and followed by preferential debt holders, which includes the tax man, employee salaries etc.

It's a convenient story that the big bad tax man always gets his take but he generally loses out more than other creditors.

[gallsman]

Legally and technically they wouldn't have to pay anything from a busted company to a busted company according to the letter of company law.
But I'd like to think if they were successful here they might ...just might...be morally troubled enough to make some restitution of some kind. Even if that had to be in a personal capacity. Is that really out of the question?

Seriously? To quote a Joe brolly tweet from earlier today, what a sheltered life you must have lead up to now.

The Taggart company or multiple companies under the Taggart umbrella has went bust and with that goes the chance multiple subbies had of ever getting a penny on the various amounts owing to them.

Its always Tax man first,banks second and every one else third in these situations, by the time the first two have feasted on the carcass there is very little left.

Finally you don't know too many contractors if you think that they might be morally troubled, the level that these boys were operating at is not usually inhabited by people with with a well calibrated moral compass.

Don't forget the administrators by the time their finished there's usually not much left for the banks or the taxman their always in a win win.

For a start, there's a difference between liquidation and administration. Secondly, the liquidator is frequently appointed at the creditors' request. They (well, really the courts) task him or her with discharging the company's assets to pay back creditors as much as possible. Should they do this for free?!

[JoG2]

Put yourselves in their position. Say it's you and all of a sudden you manage to pull off a shock verdict against the bank and suddenly find yourself flush again.

In your conscience you know you screwed over ( by accident or design) some good hard working honest subbies - who were once good friends and neighbours. Because that's the reality here in many individual cases.

Would you take your money and run, or would you attempt at least to make some kind of meaningful financial gesture of the kind that would at least show you had some moral compass?

I know many wouldn't bother to do this - but I'd be heartened at least to know that some of you would/might. That's all.

Those ba5tards reneged on doing the right thing to subbies, suppliers and many of the home buyers who were unfortunate to deal with these charlatans , when they were a pair of the wealthiest men in the north. Conscious bypass the pair of them.

[Corner Forward]

Don't really see what case the taggarts have here, they are claiming the bank were negligent in not informing them they had concerns about the recoverability of their loans. Surely the only reason the banks would have to be concerned was if the company wasn't meeting it's loan repayments. As directors of the company these boys should have been fully aware if they were meeting their debt obligations.  Id be surprised if the bank hadn't raised concerns  prior to any legal action.

[TabClear]

It does look like a technicality. As I understand it the Taggrts are claiming that if they had known earlier the bank had concerns they could have sold other assets to make good?

While this might have been pre the complete collapse of the property market, given the scale of the exposure to development land, surely this would just have been kicking the can down the road in any case until the crash? i.e. they would have been in the same situation a few months later? ( I know the brothers deny this but seriously?)

On a separate point, any money they made and extracted from the business pre financial difficulty is theirs, end of story as far as I am concerned. If you own a company you should not be forced to retain profits simply to cover every eventuality. Anybody who wanted additional security over getting paid should have demanded payment in advance or sought bonds/Letters of Credits. Clearly they would not have got these in this situation and would not have got the work but thats the price of doing business with a Limited Liability Company and it was thier call.

However, If a comapy was trading, knowing full well they would not be able to pay thier debts then directors should be held personally liable under wrongful trading law.

[God14]

I'd agree with that Tabclear.  Its Ulster Bank that have signed personal guarantee's to the tune of £8.3M from the brothers.
The Taggarts defence seems to be that they did not know what they were signing as they signed stacks of paperwork from the bank? Surely that's not a proper legal defence? I cant see how the Taggarts could possibly hope to win this case. Maybe that's why Michael Taggart is defending himself and not some top barrister

Whilst Ulster Bank in particular were the biggest shower of sh'ite here, often acting immorally and against the spirit of the agreements they entered - it does look like they've kept themselves to the right side of the letter of the law.

[orangeman]

Makes you wonder why the Quinn case can't be heard as quickly as this one.

[gallsman]

I'd agree with that Tabclear.  Its Ulster Bank that have signed personal guarantee's to the tune of £8.3M from the brothers.
The Taggarts defence seems to be that they did not know what they were signing as they signed stacks of paperwork from the bank? Surely that's not a proper legal defence? I cant see how the Taggarts could possibly hope to win this case. Maybe that's why Michael Taggart is defending himself and not some top barrister

Whilst Ulster Bank in particular were the biggest shower of sh'ite here, often acting immorally and against the spirit of the agreements they entered - it does look like they've kept themselves to the right side of the letter of the law.

Even if you sign, you're not automatically bound to the contract if it is deemed particularly onerous or unbalanced and the court could discharge you. However, that's relevant to the position of those who enter the contract. These were successful businessmen who dealt with banks frequently in relation to loans of large amounts of money. They knew exactly what they were getting into (I expect).

[Bensars]

It does look like a technicality. As I understand it the Taggrts are claiming that if they had known earlier the bank had concerns they could have sold other assets to make good?

While this might have been pre the complete collapse of the property market, given the scale of the exposure to development land, surely this would just have been kicking the can down the road in any case until the crash? i.e. they would have been in the same situation a few months later? ( I know the brothers deny this but seriously?)

On a separate point, any money they made and extracted from the business pre financial difficulty is theirs, end of story as far as I am concerned. If you own a company you should not be forced to retain profits simply to cover every eventuality. Anybody who wanted additional security over getting paid should have demanded payment in advance or sought bonds/Letters of Credits. Clearly they would not have got these in this situation and would not have got the work but thats the price of doing business with a Limited Liability Company and it was thier call.
However, If a comapy was trading, knowing full well they would not be able to pay thier debts then directors should be held personally liable under wrongful trading law.

It is also the price they pay for doing business with a Bank. (While they may have been no angels either, they were under significant pressure to rebalance their loan book)  They were leveraged to the hilt and the bank had them sign guarantees.
In so the much the same way they had their subbies by the short and curlies , the bank also had them in a similar position.

[TabClear]

It does look like a technicality. As I understand it the Taggrts are claiming that if they had known earlier the bank had concerns they could have sold other assets to make good?

While this might have been pre the complete collapse of the property market, given the scale of the exposure to development land, surely this would just have been kicking the can down the road in any case until the crash? i.e. they would have been in the same situation a few months later? ( I know the brothers deny this but seriously?)

On a separate point, any money they made and extracted from the business pre financial difficulty is theirs, end of story as far as I am concerned. If you own a company you should not be forced to retain profits simply to cover every eventuality. Anybody who wanted additional security over getting paid should have demanded payment in advance or sought bonds/Letters of Credits. Clearly they would not have got these in this situation and would not have got the work but thats the price of doing business with a Limited Liability Company and it was thier call.
However, If a comapy was trading, knowing full well they would not be able to pay thier debts then directors should be held personally liable under wrongful trading law.

It is also the price they pay for doing business with a Bank. (While they may have been no angels either, they were under significant pressure to rebalance their loan book)  They were leveraged to the hilt and the bank had them sign guarantees.
In so the much the same way they had their subbies by the short and curlies , the bank also had them in a similar position.

I agree.  If the guarantees were procured by the bank legally then they should be bound by them. Interesting correlation with the Quinn case where the family argument is that the guarantees were not legal due to the purpose. Do banks not need to recommend independent legal advice before people sign guarantees?

[deiseach]

I'm guessing the Taggart case is going to turn on an obscure point of law about duty of care or something like that. It might be useful to establish the extent to which a bank has responsibility to their clients. Even if the Taggarts are successful though, they're still a shower of chancers.

[gallsman]

I'm guessing the Taggart case is going to turn on an obscure point of law about duty of care or something like that. It might be useful to establish the extent to which a bank has responsibility to their clients. Even if the Taggarts are successful though, they're still a shower of chancers.

If a court decides that a creditor has a duty of care to let the debtor know they have concerns over inability to pay their debts so the debtor can make decisions about how they run their business, then we're all fucked.

[seafoid]

I'm guessing the Taggart case is going to turn on an obscure point of law about duty of care or something like that. It might be useful to establish the extent to which a bank has responsibility to their clients. Even if the Taggarts are successful though, they're still a shower of chancers.

Mac an tSagairt

Son of the priest
Stands to reason

[deiseach]

I'm guessing the Taggart case is going to turn on an obscure point of law about duty of care or something like that. It might be useful to establish the extent to which a bank has responsibility to their clients. Even if the Taggarts are successful though, they're still a shower of chancers.

If a court decides that a creditor has a duty of care to let the debtor know they have concerns over inability to pay their debts so the debtor can make decisions about how they run their business, then we're all fucked.

Fair point. I can't think of any other basis on which this claim can succeed though. Any idea?