Taggart Brothers Vs Ulster Bank court case

[Bensars]

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.

Exactly, and no concern was raised over the first 2 or 300 million  or more that the bank loaned over a succession of years.

What happened here was that not only did they greedy putting all the eggs in one basket they left themselves no out option. Its alright crying about it afterwards if only they had more time etc etc.   they were around long enough to know the rules of the game and no doubt ways around it. The simple fact here was that they over extended themselves. Rather than blame the bank, they should be looking at themselves and those who they employed to give advice.

It was said in some of the reports on the case that caution was advised in board meetings regarding payment of bonus etc at a time financial pressure on the company. Seems that some of those warnings went unheeded.

[cornerback]

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?!

Free?  NO

But charging up to £300/hr & the average hourly rate working out at around the £150-£170 doesn't leave much for the creditors.

These boyos can easily strip £500,000 out of a company and then the report states that there is no money left for creditors!

[TabClear]

 I cannot see any way the taggarts can win this. For ub to appoint administrators means the company had to have breached it's loan agreements in a material way.  The personal guarantee point appears to be the brothers defense against the Ulster Bank counter claim ie we didn't know they were there.

Don't fancy their chances on that either.

[TabClear]

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?!

Free?  NO

But charging up to £300/hr & the average hourly rate working out at around the £150-£170 doesn't leave much for the creditors.

These boyos can easily strip £500,000 out of a company and then the report states that there is no money left for creditors!

The liquidators are finance professionals who could   command similar fees doing other finance work that is a hell of a lot less risky and stressful.  Supply and demand.

[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?!

Free?  NO

But charging up to £300/hr & the average hourly rate working out at around the £150-£170 doesn't leave much for the creditors.

These boyos can easily strip £500,000 out of a company and then the report states that there is no money left for creditors!

The liquidators are finance professionals who could   command similar fees doing other finance work that is a hell of a lot less risky and stressful.  Supply and demand.

They're also not at the front of the queue. Anyone petitioning the courts for a company to be wound up inherently accepts the fact that the liquidators will get paid too. If this reduces the pot, then so be it.

[cornerback]

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?!

Free?  NO

But charging up to £300/hr & the average hourly rate working out at around the £150-£170 doesn't leave much for the creditors.

These boyos can easily strip £500,000 out of a company and then the report states that there is no money left for creditors!

The liquidators are finance professionals who could   command similar fees doing other finance work that is a hell of a lot less risky and stressful.  Supply and demand.

They're also not at the front of the queue. Anyone petitioning the courts for a company to be wound up inherently accepts the fact that the liquidators will get paid too. If this reduces the pot, then so be it.

I've been to a few of these creditor meetings held by the administrators & you hear the usual "we'll try our best to get as much for the creditors as possible"... the final report lands in & there is nothing for the creditors yet they have just creamed off over half a million pounds.

I know it's not going to change but its just a gear-grinder!!

[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?!

Free?  NO

But charging up to £300/hr & the average hourly rate working out at around the £150-£170 doesn't leave much for the creditors.

These boyos can easily strip £500,000 out of a company and then the report states that there is no money left for creditors!

The liquidators are finance professionals who could   command similar fees doing other finance work that is a hell of a lot less risky and stressful.  Supply and demand.

They're also not at the front of the queue. Anyone petitioning the courts for a company to be wound up inherently accepts the fact that the liquidators will get paid too. If this reduces the pot, then so be it.

I've been to a few of these creditor meetings held by the administrators & you hear the usual "we'll try our best to get as much for the creditors as possible"... the final report lands in & there is nothing for the creditors yet they have just creamed off over half a million pounds.

I know it's not going to change but its just a gear-grinder!!

It all depends on the classification and the security of the debt. At the end of the day there is inherent risk in all business - if directors of a company run it in it utmost good faith and creditors get burned, well so be it, that's just bad luck. If they run it fraudulently or recklessly, well that's why there are criminal and civil implications.

[God14]

Case adjourned til the new year...

Copied from the Irish Times


Michael Taggart denies receiving bank letters calling in guarantees

Counsel for Ulster Bank accuses former developer of lying in court

Thu, Dec 18, 2014, 17:46



First published:
Thu, Dec 18, 2014, 17:46

A former property developer was accused of lying in court in Belfast on Thursday over claims he never received bank letters calling in millions of pounds in personal guarantees.

Senior counsel for the Ulster Bank challenged Michael Taggart's honesty after the businessman alleged the demands for payment had been fabricated.

Amid tense exchanges, Stephen Shaw QC put it to Mr Taggart: "You're a liar because if you had not received them you would have been shouting from the rooftops and you never breathed a word of it."

   
As his cross-examination ended after 16 days in the witness box at the High Court in Belfast, Mr Taggart denied the accusation and a separate assertion that he thought he was "smarter than the market".

The one-time tycoon and his brother John Taggart are suing Ulster Bank for alleged negligence and improper conduct which they say contributed to the fall of their house-building empire.

The Taggart Group had been a massive operation with developments on both sides of the Border, in Britain and with further interests in the US. It collapsed when the property market crashed in 2007 and went into administration a year later.

Credit concerns

The brothers, from Co Derry, claim they were kept in the dark about credit concerns within the bank.

Had they been warned, they contend, assets could have been sold to offset loans.

In a counterclaim, Ulster Bank is seeking £5million and €4.3 million it says the Taggarts owe in personal guarantees over land purchases in Kinsealy, north Co Dublin and in Northern Ireland.

Continuing his evidence in the case, Mr Taggart insisted that neither he nor his brother received letters allegedly sent from the bank in September 2008 to call in the guarantees.

He told Mr Justice Burgess: "We never got them, and that's not the only letters that have been, in my opinion, fabricated."

But Mr Shaw argued that no mention of any non-receipt featured in the Taggarts' statements for the case.

Questioning the businessman's honesty, the barrister insisted he would have already "told the world" the bank was not entitled to the guarantees because demands were never served.

"I have said you were a liar about guarantees being called up, that's not something counsel does lightly," he said.

Mr Taggart replied: "I do not accept what Mr Shaw is putting to me, and if there's one thing I'm not in my life is a liar."

The court also heard how he claimed in a press interview that he thought the market had bottomed out in July 2008.

Mr Shaw suggested he was "standing solitary against the world" at that time.

Relaxed and indifferent

The barrister said bank witnesses will claim Mr Taggart adopted a relaxed and indifferent air at meetings, looking out the window and not paying attention to what was being discussed.

"I don't agree with that, we were in a work out situation since October," the former company boss insisted.

"The banks were charging us £40,000 a month and we were reporting on a daily basis."

But Mr Shaw maintained: "You were someone who thought that you were smarter than the market and other people, and that you had no difficulty in riding out this storm. Isn't that right?"

Again the witness rejected the assessment being put to him.

He told his own counsel, Gerald Simpson QC, that the Taggart Group would not have come under the same pressures if the bank's concerns had been relayed in Spring 2007.

"It wouldn't have been just me, it would have been each and every director in the company," he said.

"There would have been uproar. many of the things that happened would never have happened."

The case was adjourned until the New Year.

[lynchbhoy]

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

Oh for Fux sake !!!

[lynchbhoy]

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.

Despite others saying your notion is daft - I kind of agree with you here.

However I doubt that even if successful the taggarts could find such repayments/gifts.

I'd expect that if they get back in business, they'd try to look after/employ those men/subbies that they didn't pay prev ( poss with an up front payment if they could afford it!)

A lot of the men out of pocket are near neighbours or folk from that hinterland and the taggert family would like to be seen to do right back among their peers

[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.

Despite others saying your notion is daft - I kind of agree with you here.

However I doubt that even if successful the taggarts could find such repayments/gifts.

I'd expect that if they get back in business, they'd try to look after/employ those men/subbies that they didn't pay prev ( poss with an up front payment if they could afford it!)

A lot of the men out of pocket are near neighbours or folk from that hinterland and the taggert family would like to be seen to do right back among their peers

You pair are living in cloud cuckoo land

(And they are back in business)

[lynchbhoy]

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.

Despite others saying your notion is daft - I kind of agree with you here.

However I doubt that even if successful the taggarts could find such repayments/gifts.

I'd expect that if they get back in business, they'd try to look after/employ those men/subbies that they didn't pay prev ( poss with an up front payment if they could afford it!)

A lot of the men out of pocket are near neighbours or folk from that hinterland and the taggert family would like to be seen to do right back among their peers

You pair are living in cloud cuckoo land

(And they are back in business)

Why?

[JoG2]

When they were worth an absolute fortune, many of those who bought houses and worked through them were ignored time and time again with a plethora of issues / complaints. You think they will gain a conscious now IF they fluke a few mil from the Ulster Bank.....2 hopes

[lynchbhoy]

When they were worth an absolute fortune, many of those who bought houses and worked through them were ignored time and time again with a plethora of issues / complaints. You think they will gain a conscious now IF they fluke a few mil from the Ulster Bank.....2 hopes

You could be somewhat right and entitled to your opinion.
But it does not tackle that they are under pressure in their community to address the issue of men losing out on wages. I wouldn't expect back payment ( not yet and maybe not ever) but they would be seen to be trying to make amends if they went to re-hire those workmen that lost out.

No chance of those that bought houses being recompensed. Not sure how you thought I was advocating a 'brewsters millions' type of splurge !

[bannside]

It's the previous friends, neighbours and people who vested their trust in the Taggarts that I'm talking about. And there are many in this bracket alone who got badly stung.

Now shit happens in business, and company law protects the protagonists in this type of instance, but let's suppose the Taggarts get a result here that leaves them flush again.

I'd say they wouldn't last long in the community they come from IF they don't make some type of arrangement or gesture of goodwill.

If they were to adopt an "I'm ok Jack, tough shit about you" attitude - well I wouldn't fancy their quality of life let's put it that way. There is company law and there's another unwritten law that says you don't pish on those around you and expect to get away with it.