It is hard to identify the first shot fired in one of the most interminable and bitter corporate battles of the past decade but it could have happened in May 2013 when US-based surgeon Joseph Sheehan wrote to one of Ireland’s richest men, Larry Goodman, asking whether there had been a change in ownership of the billionaire’s shareholding in the exclusive Blackrock Clinic.

This seemingly innocuous inquiry from Sheehan, a co-founder in 1986 of Ireland’s self-proclaimed “best private hospital” along with three other surgeons, including his brother the retired orthopaedic surgeon Jimmy Sheehan, did not precipitate the seemingly never-ending onslaught of litigation that has surrounded the clinic in recent years.

That came later, in 2014, when a Goodman company put a target on Sheehan by spending nearly €17 million buying up old debts the surgeon had secured against his Blackrock shares and then calling them in.

But arguably it suggests Sheehan may have pulled the trigger first or engaged in a pre-strike of sorts to jeopardise the beef baron’s hefty financial investment in Blackrock Hospital Ltd (BHL) over fears the billionaire was moving in for a takeover.

If Sheehan could prove Goodman had breached the Shareholders’ Agreement by secretly transferring control of his Blackrock stake without asking for prior consent, then the magnate might have to pay the ultimate penalty for such a transgression – a forfeit of his shares. 

And the other shareholders, including Sheehan, would have first dibs on acquiring those shares. While it would be some time before the stakeholders would darken the doors of the Four Courts, the battle for control of the south Dublin hospital had begun.

Secretive restructurings

Back then the hospital’s ownership, held through various companies, broke-down roughly as follows: Joseph Sheehan had a 28 per cent stake, Jimmy Sheehan held 16 per cent, Larry Goodman had 28 per cent, founding doctor George Duffy and his wife had around 20 per cent and US property investor John Flynn had 8 per cent. The most obvious change since then is Flynn has bowed out after losing a lengthy, hard-fought, court marathon against Goodman.

But first, back to the letter Sheehan wrote to Goodman about his shareholding. The reply from accountants KPMG, on behalf of Goodman, stated that the Blackrock shares were ultimately owned by the Goodman Family Trusts and had been at all relevant times since the beef baron bought into Blackrock at a time when UK insurer Bupa was divesting its interest in 2006.

KPMG’s rather muted response was not good enough for Sheehan who says to this day that his concerns about alleged secret transfers and a Liechtenstein entity called the Rabena Foundation have not been satisfactorily answered. 

He complained adequate documentation to support KPMG’s assurances in respect of Goodman’s hospital interests was not supplied. 

On top of that, his lawyers dropped something of a bomb by questioning the integrity of two records, signed in 1995 by Larry and his wife Catherine Goodman that were produced as evidence of ownership, in court proceedings last June.

Relying on publicly available documents from various corporate registries, Sheehan contended that the last decade had seen a monumental and secretive restructuring of the Goodman holding in Blackrock involving 13 corporate entities in six jurisdictions including the Netherlands, Jersey, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg. Goodman’s side denied anything of the sort.

While there have been countless twists and turns since the shareholders became entrenched in litigation five years ago, this is where the row was parked until Tuesday of this week.  

The fundamental task assigned to the Commercial Court, when the case was at hearing last June, was to determine who truly controlled Goodman’s shareholding in the clinic when he came aboard in 2006, who controls it now and whether that has changed in the interim. 

This is important, again because of the 2006 Blackrock shareholders’ agreement appears to stipulate that any change of ownership must be disclosed to the other stakeholders on request.

The beef baron

In the grand scheme of things, Sheehan is not the only one to take issue with the opaque, tax-efficient structures behind Goodman’s multinational business empire. The revelation by the Irish Times that Goodman pulled in profits of €170 million from nine companies in Luxembourg last year drew the ire of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA). 

IFA President Joe Healy complained that at a time when Goodman’s ABP Food Group factories had cut beef prices to “ridiculous levels for farmers” it was “particularly galling” for them to see the magnate making huge profits and routing them through Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.

The Group does not publish accounts that would show its overall profit but the companies had assets of more than €3.45 billion.

While Goodman is most readily associated with meat processing, the Blackrock row is a reminder of how much further his reach extends into the private healthcare and property sectors. Recently he has been building up a stake in Dublin-listed, real estate investors Green Reit. He also owns a substantial property portfolio that includes the government-let offices at Miesian Plaza on Baggot Street.

The case, as a whole, is far from over. The second module contains allegations Goodman broke a 2006 agreement among the hospital’s shareholders by transferring ownership of his shares.

The case about the ownership of his shares is part of a wider boardroom row waged by Sheehan against Goodman’s company Breccia, the Hospital and related parties.

Due to its overall complexity, the proceedings have been broken down into three modules. The surgeon lost the first arm of his case last June when the court determined that a €4 million stockpile of dividends linked to the surgeon’s 28 per cent shareholding in the hospital rightfully belonged to Goodman.  That is because Goodman bought Sheehan’s loans from the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, formerly Anglo Irish Bank, and inherited a charge on the dividends.

The second module, still live, contains allegations Goodman broke a 2006 agreement among the hospital’s shareholders by transferring ownership of his shares.

Finally, in the third module, currently at hearing, the court has to decide further claims made by Sheehan that his Blackrock rival was part of an “alleged conspiracy” to prevent him clearing his IBRC liabilities by buying up Sheehan’s debts and enforcing them against his lucrative shareholding, thereby jeopardising his position as a stakeholder. Also embroiled in that action as defendants are Dr George Duffy, one of the founders of the hospital, and his wife Rosaleen Duffy.

Sheehan maintains Goodman’s overall ambition was to take control of the hospital. He alleges the beef baron acted wrongfully and unlawfully trying to achieve this end. The allegations are denied.

The surgeon

Earlier this summer, the court was busy looking at phase two, the ownership/control module. It was not without its difficulties. The trial was barely off the starting blocks when a row broke out about the parameters of the proceedings, a common thread running throughout the entire action. 

Goodman’s side complained to Justice Michael Quinn that Sheehan’s lawyers were going outside the boundaries of the case as pleaded by Sheehan in his amended statement of claim, the foundation document for a civil case such as this. Sheehan’s side insisted on the relevance of the material and wouldn’t back down. An appeal on the issue is already in the works. The partially heard module is now in pause mode.

But what follows, based on those first few days at hearing, is the surgeon’s account of the supposedly maze-like corporate structure behind Goodman’s Blackrock shareholding.  Senior counsel John O’Donnell, acting for Sheehan, set out his client’s stall to the court. 

In essence, it queried the legitimacy of Goodman’s stake in the South Dublin hospital.

Again, it is worthwhile stressing that the surgeon’s claims were vigorously contested by Goodman’s side who said Breccia, the Irish firm which holds the shares, was always beneficially owned by an entity known as the Portlon Trust based in the principality of Liechtenstein. The Goodman side has yet to put its case fully to the court.

Sheehan alleged that in March 2006, the ownership of Goodman’s newly minted 28 per cent stake in the Blackrock Clinic was a relatively simple matter. It was held in Breccia which was a wholly-owned subsidiary of another firm in the Goodman stable, Arlesse. 

Larry Goodman held 95.5 per cent of the paid shares in Arlesse and his wife Catherine Goodman controlled the remaining 4.5 per cent. 

Backing up his version were audited accounts from Arlesse, before it became an unlimited company, which named the Goodmans as beneficiaries of 100 per cent of the share capital in the firm – not Portlon, the court heard.

Galway’s ownership was split. On one branch of the corporate tree was the Liechtenstein based Portlon Trust which indirectly held 67 per cent of the shares in Galway through a Jersey company called KH Holdings. 

Breccia’s answer for this apparent discrepancy was that the filed Arlesse accounts were inaccurate, two years in a row. The Goodmans were holding the shares in trust.

According to Sheehan’s expert, forensic accountant Julian Caplin of RSM, the first change of control appeared to have happened two days before Christmas in 2009 when the Goodmans are said to have transferred ownership of their Blackrock shares, held in Arlesse, to a Maltese entity called Galway Ltd, later known as Aburg. 

Galway’s ownership was split. On one branch of the corporate tree was the Liechtenstein based Portlon Trust which indirectly held 67 per cent of the shares in Galway through a Jersey company called KH Holdings. 

The trustees of Portlon in 2009, when this transaction allegedly took place, were Philip Morgan and the Protec Trust and Dr Christof Ebersberg. Sean Mooney, formerly of KPMG, was protector of the trust. 

The other branch ultimately led up to the Rabena Foundation, which held 33 per cent.

But according to Sheehan, that was just the beginning. 

In 2013, a second change of control was alleged to have taken place. Company filings from Jersey allegedly showed that the shares held by Portlon through KH Holdings were passed on to an entity known as Milestown Assets Limited but were ultimately vested in the Rabena Foundation.

The Rabena Foundation

Allegedly Portlon was out of the picture while Rabena remained in.

In court, the Portlon transfer was presented as a circular transaction because KH Holdings became owned by Parma Investments which was itself a subsidiary of KH Holdings. This was described as inaccurate by Goodman’s side.

Caplin, the accountant, accepted that he had not been furnished with all of the necessary documentation as such Liechtenstein entities were not required to make filings publicly available.

Local legal experts explained that a foundation is a fund, typically run by a board, that has its own legal personality. It can sue and be sued.

A foundation is typically set up to achieve the goals of its founding member whether that might be providing for family members in the long term, asset preservation, philanthropy or for tax optimisation.

If a foundation is more business-oriented, it will often operate as a holding entity for corporate investments. While a trust can set up a foundation, technically it is the trustee who will act as founder on behalf of the trust. According to this legal advice, the founder or founders, if it were Larry or Catherine Goodman, would have no control over the assets of the foundation.

The Palm Beach, Florida based developer later told a court he saw the documents’ arrival as something akin to a “divine gift”.

Again, the lack of information limited the extent of the expert opinion offered.

However, minutes obtained from a secret Rabena Foundation meeting from March 2012 indicated the relevant personnel on the board at the time were Morgan, Ebersberg, Paul Carroll and Anna Bereuter, but not Larry Goodman. 

The disclosure of the board minutes was not without controversy. According to Breccia director Declan Sheeran, the information formed part of a batch of documents stolen from the Foundation in 2014 and was apparently posted or delivered by said anonymous thief to Flynn, the other hospital shareholder – apart from Sheehan – who was at that time embroiled in litigation against Goodman.

The Palm Beach, Florida based developer later told a court he saw the documents’ arrival as something akin to a “divine gift”.

Disclosure

Having initially engaged with KPMG for information on Goodman’s shares, and the “trusts” behind them, Sheehan’s solicitors followed up with an ultimatum for “full, complete and comprehensive information” to be disclosed by April 1, 2016.

Bluechip law firm Matheson, acting for Goodman, sent a pithy response to the effect that the matter had already been dealt with. “This issue has been addressed and nothing has changed,” the letter said. Sheehan’s side complained that their genuine concerns had simply been batted away without explanation. 

More alarming, in their view, was the uncontradicted fact that the “trusts” and not Larry Goodman had been identified as the controller of Breccia. The court heard this in itself was suggestive of a change of ownership which left Sheehan with “no alternative but to litigate” the claim.

In the surgeon’s version of events, Goodman is nowhere to be found in this corporate game of musical chairs because he is not a trustee of Portlon nor is he alleged to be on the board of the Rabena Foundation. As there is no registry of documents relating to such entities it is impossible to determine who ultimately gains from them.  

Some light was shed on the matter when under EU anti-money laundering regulations introduced in 2016, the Blackrock Clinic wrote to Breccia seeking clarity in respect of the beneficial ownership of the shares.

Sheeran later confirmed in court filings that the 2013 KPMG reference to the Goodman family trusts encompassed Portlon and Rabena, the former ultimately owning the majority interest in Breccia.

The response from Sheeran, the Breccia director and accountant, was that Protec, one of three trustees of the Portlon Trust, was a beneficial owner of Breccia. The other names given were Morgan and Ebersberg, the Portlon trustee along with trust protector Sean Mooney. Other names included a number of Protec directors, Dr Oberhuber, Dr Wenaweser, Dr Grabher and Dr Burger. 

Sheeran later confirmed in court filings that the 2013 KPMG reference to the Goodman family trusts encompassed Portlon and Rabena, the former ultimately owning the majority interest in Breccia.

Dr Sheehan claimed this was information that should have been provided to him by Breccia in compliance with the Shareholders’ Agreement, in line with his request. Sheeran disagreed arguing that there was no such obligation in circumstances where there had not been a change of ownership to trigger the relevant clause.

Furthermore Breccia queried what damage Sheehan had suffered from the background machinations of a “family trust” to merit such a legal showdown? After all, wasn’t the whole purpose of the pledge in the shareholders’ agreement to stop stakeholders selling their interest to a third party without first making an internal offer? 

A declaration

Was it less a case of damage and more a case of opportunism? At one point Sheehan’s barrister John O’Donnell told the court, “If I am entitled, as a result of a deemed transfer, to bid for shares, that is a property right and if I obtain Mr Goodman’s shares that would give me a certain degree of control in relation to the company.” Happily, he added, the court was not being asked to decide that. 

In response, Goodman’s side was having none of Sheehan’s allegedly inflated claims. In the beef baron’s account of events, Breccia shares were held in Arlesse on trust for Portlon until 2014 when they were transferred to Parma Management Services -again on trust for Portlon. The Rabena Foundation and Milestown didn’t come into it.

Sheehan’s side cried foul on the unwitnessed declarations. Where were the supporting documents, they asked? And why were the original copies of the declarations, held by private wealth law specialists Marxer and Partner in Liechtenstein, not produced?

Backing up those claims his lawyers, led by senior counsel Brian O’Moore, presented a declaration from Larry and Catherine Goodman dating to 1995 affirming that they held the Arlesse shares in trust for Portlon. The declaration came with an attached pre-signed stock transfer form that would give Portlon absolute discretion to shift the shares at will, evidence they had no right, title or interest in them.

Sheehan’s side cried foul on the unwitnessed declarations. Where were the supporting documents, they asked? And why were the original copies of the declarations, held by private wealth law specialists Marxer and Partner in Liechtenstein, not produced?

O’Moore expressed his surprise at this bold strike which appeared to imply a declaration made by one of Ireland’s top businessmen was a fabrication.

Barrister John O’Donnell was not ready to fully draw his sword on the bona fides of the documents. He simply asserted that he was putting the other side on strict proof as to their authenticity. As nobody was witness to the Portlon declarations, it would arguably fall to the Goodmans to come into court and testify that the papers and “so-called” signatures were genuine.

And yet nobody expected that to happen.  The media-shy mogul, described as “happily alive and well” was not likely to do a turn in court and it would be for Justice Quinn to make his own mind up.

O’Moore continued his defence case. The Shareholders Agreement requires that the true owners of the different promoters shares in Blackrock Hospital Limited must not be concealed, the court heard, at risk of the hospital issuing a transfer notice. But this stipulation does not extend to control of corporate shareholders like Breccia. 

He also argued the agreement lets promoters transfer their interests to affiliated companies or family members although that is not what he claims happened here. 

The tax expert argued that Sheehan’s case was that by virtue of purely technical breaches of the Shareholders’ Agreement, Breccia should be compelled to sell its shares.

Goodman’s side said there was no transfer by Breccia of the shares in it to anyone. While there had been restructuring within the group, the ultimate beneficial owner of the company has remained the same, the Portlon Trust. An error in an annual return in 2013 accounted for Sheehan’s expert believing that a material change had occurred.

O’Moore said: “As the Court will have seen and knows, our position is that there was never any change of control in Breccia so there was no obligation to provide any information so required. That trigger was simply never pulled.”

Former KPMG tax partner Sean Mooney, protector of the Portlon Trust and Rabena Foundation, filed a witness statement to the same effect for Breccia. Findings made by the other side’s financial expert Julian Caplin had been limited by incomplete information as he had “not had access to certain key documents,” Mooney said.

The tax expert argued that Sheehan’s case was that by virtue of purely technical breaches of the Shareholders’ Agreement, Breccia should be compelled to sell its shares. This was regardless of whether the other shareholders had experienced any loss, damage or prejudice.

As the proceedings unfolded, Sheehan was accused of concocting “willy nilly” an entirely new case at the eleventh hour, detailing novel ways “control” of Breccia had allegedly altered, including claims there had been a change in the control of Breccia’s guarantor, Irish Agricultural Development Company (IADC) and the appointment of new trustees to the Portlon Trust.  These had “no substantive merit”, the court heard. 

The ruling

But Justice Quinn noted a shifting of the goalposts on both sides. In a preliminary ruling intended to set down the parameters of the case, he noted that the controversial 1995 Goodman declarations had not previously been part of the defence.

He was also critical of the “very limited” correspondence issued to Sheehan by Breccia at a time when the surgeon appeared to have a right to more detailed information.

The IADC guarantor argument was among the claims stripped away by Quinn as wholly outside the pleaded case.

After a brief adjournment, Breccia flagged to the court its intention to appeal the judge’s decision. With the Court of Appeal experiencing caseload backlogs of up to two years, the whole module has been thrown on ice.

But as previously stated, the change of control module is just one of many seams being mined in the ongoing Blackrock shareholders’ dispute.

A new beginning?

To date, the litigation has spawned more than a dozen judgments, including on appeal and cross-appeal.  This does not include related litigation in Delaware in the United States. In the last week of the legal term before the long summer vacation, the Blackrock shareholders had the rare and arguably dubious honour of having the various strands of their cases listed before the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

Financially, internal notes suggest 2019 got off to a good start with pre-tax earnings for January of €2.4 million, eight percent ahead of budget and 20 per cent ahead of January 2018.

But as civil strife goes, the Blackrock dispute displays an unusual anomaly. The trauma among the shareholders seems to be almost entirely localised to multi-million euro legal bills. 

The hospital itself is booming, delivering pre-tax profits of €9.5 million and dividends of around €3 million, according to the most recent set of accounts filed for 2017. At that point the business employed 852 people directly and another 105 people indirectly such as catering and cleaning contractors.  

Financially, internal notes suggest 2019 got off to a good start with pre-tax earnings for January of €2.4 million, eight per cent ahead of budget and 20 per cent ahead of January 2018.

Activity across the hospital was strong with year on year increases in daycare admissions, theatre procedures and in the hospital’s interventional cardiology department. Almost all of the hospital’s outpatient departments performed well and overall occupancy stood at 82 per cent.

Being a typical Western country, Ireland has an ageing population and healthcare demands are only likely to increase, the clinic’s 2017 accounts note.

Balance of power

A lot has happened since Sheehan took up arms against Goodman in the courts.

For one, the beef baron has extended his reach at the hospital. When the litigation started, the men were evenly matched. Each had a 28 per cent stake. Goodman has since extended his control to 36 per cent. 

The shareholders’ quarrel has also taken a personal toll in what was described in court back in 2015 as a “Cain against Abel” twist. Joseph Sheehan’s older brother Jimmy Sheehan, perhaps the figure most synonymous with the clinic’s success, has backed Goodman all the way in the dispute describing him as a “most sincere friend” who, contrary to his brother’s claims, has “no interest in a majority stake”. 

Jimmy Sheehan expressed his dismay, in court documents, that he had been left “hugely exposed and vulnerable” when his brother and two other shareholders, John Flynn and George Duffy, defaulted on loans to Anglo Irish Bank in 2010. He had given cross guarantees on the secured loans which he said: “could have been called in, at any time, to effect a sale of my shareholding in the hospital”. 

“I am very proud of Blackrock and my role in its success,” he wrote in a poignant retirement letter to the other shareholders in which he asked them not to block his exit.

The orthopaedic surgeon took comfort in Breccia’s acquisition of the loans noting that his brother and Flynn “now wish to refinance their debts with certain US and UK based sub-prime lenders”.

When Jimmy Sheehan wished to bow out of the hospital in 2016, it was to Goodman that he turned to offload his 16 per cent shareholding for a reported €16 million. 

“I am very proud of Blackrock and my role in its success,” he wrote in a poignant retirement letter to the other shareholders in which he asked them not to block his exit.

“It is regrettable that, in the past number of years, Blackrock has become synonymous with dissent and disagreement as evidenced from various items of litigation between certain shareholders arising from their banking agreements.”

He noted that a veto in the shareholders’ agreement required written consent from all shareholders in order for him to be able to sell his shares and leave. It was perhaps a testament to the toxicity of the row that he asked that the veto would not be used to “frustrate” his wishes.

“The veto was intended to ensure the preservation of the Catholic ethos of the hospital. Its operation was never intended to prevent a retiring shareholder from exiting,” he added. 

But to date, it appears he hasn’t managed to leave. A quick glance at the filings on the Companies Registrations Office shows Jimmy Sheehan’s Dornway holding on to that 16 per cent stake.

The Talos deal

As mentioned, Flynn did bow out as a stakeholder of Blackrock. Michael McAteer was appointed by Breccia last year as a receiver over Benray, the company the developer used to hold his shares.  It followed a long legal war between the companies. Flynn was not a Blackrock founder. He had come on board in 2006 at the same time as Breccia, acquiring an 8 per cent stake with a loan from Anglo Irish Bank.

During the financial crisis, his loans, worth around  €8 million, were transferred to Nama. Hospital founders Joseph Sheehan and George Duffy were in a similar position with their lender IBRC. The three agreed to group together to buy back their loans through a special purpose vehicle and a Cayman company called Medfund. Sheehan had €45 million in backing from Talos Capital, an affiliate of private equity giant Blackstone. The borrowings were to be secured by each of the men’s BHL shares.

The bid for the IBRC loans went in on March 20, 2014.  The Nama bid was to come later.

But it didn’t pass muster. The transaction collapsed when Duffy allegedly entered into an agreement with Goodman to redeem his €7.5 million IBRC loans with help from Breccia.  As Duffy’s shares were no longer available as security for the loan, Talos allegedly bailed on the €45 million deal notwithstanding the fact that a €2.4 million deposit had already been paid to IBRC. Flynn and Sheehan claimed it was a deliberate move by Breccia to compromise the Talos borrowings. In other words, a conspiracy.

According to Flynn, it was not until late the following month that he first discovered Breccia had been the buyer.

With the evaporation of the Talos finance package, Flynn was not in a position to immediately buy back his Nama loans.  Breccia stepped into the equation on the April 1, 2014 by acquiring the developer’s debts. Flynn did not know who the buyer was at first.

In a court filing in a previous case, he claimed he spoke to Goodman on the phone about the purchase of the Benray loan but the beef baron did not take the opportunity to clarify his position.

According to Flynn, it was not until late the following month that he first discovered Breccia had been the buyer.

Flynn spent the next four years in court trying to fight for his Blackrock stake. Without success. 

Sheehan, who is in a similar position, ploughs on. His bank debts were also acquired by Breccia after the Talos deal sank.

A long and winding road

 Last Tuesday, the case was back in the Commercial Court and things didn’t appear to be going to plan for Dr Sheehan. Round three, otherwise known as the conspiracy module, of his epic battle against fellow Blackrock Clinic shareholders Goodman and Duffy was about to kick off.

The hearing centred on the Talos transaction and was scheduled to last 10 days. 

But there were preliminary problems. The first was that Sheehan had parted ways with his solicitors Shannon O’Connor. The court heard this was due to a lack of funds rather than as a result of any breakdown in the relationship. With the firm now off record, the surgeon was trying something unusual in court. He was applying for direct representation from a barrister, Eugenie Houston. Or at least, she was.

Houston, ready to step in, told the court of Sheehan’s constitutional rights of access to justice and of his need to be represented. She added that a draft submission prepared by the surgeon as a lay litigant “was utterly unusable”. This had been somewhat improved in the meantime (without her assistance she stressed), but unrepresented Heuston said it appeared the ship was “heading for a bit of an iceberg”.

The court heard from Houston that the legislation (the 2015 Legal Services Regulation Act), no longer distinguished between barristers and solicitors when it came to representing a client and it was the failure of the Rules Committee of the Superior Courts to implement a procedure that would allow for direct representation by a barrister that had led to something of a “silly problem”.

Asked by Justice Michael Quinn if she was going to open any case law to show precedent, Houston replied that there was no precedent. She had made a similar application before a different High Court judge in 2017 which was rejected.

Houston, who previously took a case against members of the Bar Council and lost, informed the court that she was no longer part of the Law Library. She is President of an alternative professional body, the Association of Barristers in Ireland. She said the organisation had written to the Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA) looking for recognition but had basically been told to “get lost”. 

In the 2017 case for direct access, the LSRA and the King’s Inns made submissions that Houston was bound by an undertaking she had given to the Benchers of the King’s Inns that she would operate under the rules of the Code of Conduct of the Law Library. She said they failed to tell the judge in that case, Justice Paul Gilligan, that while the Bar Council and the committee members set these “apparent laws”, they themselves enjoy “secret exemption” from the rules.

Asked by Justice Michael Quinn about the undertaking she had given to the Benchers on qualifying as a barrister, she said that based on her rights as a consumer, this was “void” and the subject of a separate legal challenge.

This unorthodox application caused some consternation among the defendants who were keen to get the case up and running. Barrister Ciaran Lewis for Dr Duffy, a co-founder of the private South Dublin hospital, said his client wanted the case to proceed quickly because he “is not as young as he used to be” and is facing very serious allegations that have been hanging over him for some time. 

Brian O’Moore, senior counsel for beef baron Larry Goodman and his firm Breccia, said Houston’s attempt to act for a client in a contentious matter without any solicitor entering an appearance was against the code of the bar and “unknown in the rules anywhere in the world”.

“The law of the land doesn’t provide for this type of representation,” he continued. He squeezed into his submissions a reference to the fact that last year Justice Michael Twomey had considered imposing an Isaac Wunder order on Dr Sheehan, restricting his ability to bring further legal actions, a move imposed on litigants who monopolise valuable court time in pursuit of a private grievance.

It would seem to be a rather unusual move by Sheehan. If he calls the defendants as his own witnesses, he will not be in a position to cross examine their evidence.

Having heard all of the parties, Justice Quinn refused the application.

Sheehan would have to fend for himself.

More preliminary discussions followed. Sheehan had attempted to serve Goodman with a subpoena last Sunday. He had made a similar move to serve Rosaleen Duffy and wanted her and her husband George Duffy to appear as witnesses. 

It would seem to be a rather unusual move by Sheehan. If he calls the defendants as his own witnesses, he will not be in a position to cross-examine their evidence.

Sheehan told the court that 99 per cent of what he wanted to question Duffy about was in the defendant’s witness statement to the court. “If I’m allowed present it to him. It’s his evidence. He gave it. It’s all there in black and white. It’s not cloak and dagger,” he said.

The legal formalities of the move were discussed and adjourned until today. 

But there was more. Having perused the surgeon’s written submissions, filed ten days earlier, the defendants’ lawyers expressed concern that Sheehan had not confined himself to the parameters of the case as pleaded in his statement of claim and would engage witnesses in a lengthy trawl through events dating back 13 years.

O’Moore read aloud from Sheehan’s submissions to flesh out his concerns to the court. He said nowhere in the original pleadings was there a complaint about Duffy transferring his Blackrock shares to his wife and company Tullycorbet, a transaction alleged by Sheehan to have secretly happened in 2011. But in recent submissions, the surgeon characterised this shift in the ownership of Duffy’s shares as an “illegal” act at the root of the alleged conspiracy against him.

Due to the nationalisation of Anglo Irish Bank, the bank to which the various shareholders were indebted, the transfer of shares by Duffy was alleged to be “a crime against the people”. Sheehan claimed the 100 per cent loan security package on offer to Anglo through cross guarantees given by the Blackrock shareholders, was diluted when Duffy shifted his 20 per cent stake to Tullycorbet. As much as 200 to 300 million euro was removed from the bank in terms of the value of the security, he claimed.

The surgeon responded that he was not pleading. “I’m telling the truth,” he added.

Another new facet to the case, the court heard, was that Duffy and Goodman were alleged to have conspired to stop Sheehan completing the redemption of his own Anglo loan through the Talos deal by entering “into a new illegal loan using stolen securities”. Furthermore, Sheehan stated in his latest submission that he intended to transfer these allegedly “unlawful acts to the criminal court for proper criminal scrutiny”. There was also a newly made claim of fraud against Dr Duffy that involved Breccia.

“Dr Sheehan must be kept to the tram lines,” O’Moore said. Lewis, for the Duffys and Tullycorbet, described the deviations as “scandalous”.The judge informed Sheehan he had to confine himself to the case pleaded. 

The surgeon responded that he was not pleading. “I’m telling the truth,” he added.

He followed with an opening address that raised more heckles from the defendants. The following day he took the witness box to begin his evidence and set out his case. He is likely to be cross-examined for some time starting from today.

Whatever the outcome of the latest Commercial Court wrangle, of one thing you can be certain. It won’t be the last shot.