{"id":129666,"date":"2025-10-18T06:46:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T06:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/129666\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T06:46:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T06:46:10","slug":"judgment-reserved-in-lengthy-civil-case-against-former-banker-michael-fingleton-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/129666\/","title":{"rendered":"Judgment reserved in lengthy civil case against former banker Michael Fingleton \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The lengthy civil case against former banker Michael Fingleton<\/a>, who is alleged to have negligently mismanaged the Irish Nationwide Building Society <\/a>(INBS) which collapsed after failed financial and property \u201cgambles\u201d, has finally concluded at the High Court.<\/p>\n

Mr Fingleton (87), who is in ill health after a stroke, ran the lender from 1971 to 2009, as managing director and chief executive. At its height in 2007, it had reported assets of \u20ac16 billion but was a high-profile casualty of the 2008 financial crisis.<\/p>\n

Mr Fingleton\u2019s ill health meant he was unable to give any evidence in the case, which concluded on Friday.<\/p>\n

Liquidators for the Irish Banking Resolution Corporation (IBRC) took the case against Mr Fingleton who denied the allegation of negligent mismanagement.<\/p>\n

The losses had been estimated by IBRC at \u20ac6 billion, relating to property loans, but only a figure of about \u20ac250 million in damages was being pursued by IBRC relating to five loans made by INBS, allegedly approved by Mr Fingleton.<\/p>\n

Mr Fingleton, acting through his wife Eileen Fingleton and son Michael Fingleton jnr, under their powers of attorney, made several attempts through court challenges and appeals to halt the case, originally filed in 2012, but ultimately failed.<\/p>\n

Closing submissions in the case concluded on Friday at the High Court, with Mr Justice Michael Quinn informing all parties he is reserving judgment but would endeavour to deliver his ruling as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

Barrister Lyndon MacCann SC for the plaintiff had said it was IBRC\u2019s case that INBS operated on a speculation that property could only \u201cgo up, and up, and up, and up\u201d and that a \u201cblase\u201d attitude had been taken to warning letters from auditors and the financial regulator.<\/p>\n

Counsel had said the claim against Mr Fingleton was for damages for alleged \u201cprofound mismanagement\u201d of INBS, for whom he was the equivalent of the chief executive and director for 38 years until his exit in 2009, \u201cor, the boss\u201d.<\/p>\n

Counsel had submitted that the claim against Mr Fingleton was \u201cenormous\u201d and that compensation was sought for \u201chuge losses\u201d for the alleged \u201cnegligent mismanagement in the stewardship of the society over decades\u201d.<\/p>\n

The five loans \u201capproved\u201d by Mr Fingleton relate to property development projects in Ireland, France and the UK between 2006 and 2008, counsel had said. <\/p>\n

Mr MacCann had said Mr Fingelton \u201cgambled\u201d with the society\u2019s money when he himself allegedly approved \u201cspeculative, risky\u201d commercial loans, which sometimes had already been greenlit by him before they were taken before the board of directors, on which he also sat.<\/p>\n

Counsel for the Fingleton side claimed there had been \u201cblack holes after black holes\u201d in the case, amounting to a lack of evidence that meant there could be no adverse finding against Mr Fingleton.<\/p>\n

Solicitor Niall Clerkin had said there were \u201clarge substantial tracts of documents missing\u201d in the case and that important witnesses had not been called by the plaintiff. Mr Clerkin said this ultimately amounted to an \u201cunfairness\u201d against the Fingleton side\u2019s ability to defend the case.<\/p>\n

The case began on May 6th last and involved 41 days of evidence and submissions before Mr Justice Quinn and involved some 1.6 million documents of discovery.<\/p>\n

The Fingleton side was represented by solicitors Kevin Lynch and Mr Clerkin of Clerkin Lynch LLP, while senior counsels John D Fitzgerald and Mr MacCann, instructed by McCann Fitzgerald Solicitors, represented the IBRC side.<\/p>\n

The State-run National Asset Management Agency took over INBS\u2019s commercial property loans in 2010. The following year, the Government merged it with Anglo Irish Bank and established IBRC to take on the finances of both lenders.<\/p>\n

Mr Fingleton was a prominent presence in Irish business during the Celtic Tiger and was reported to have been worth about \u20ac75 million in 2006; however, his son has told the courts that his father is reduced to \u20ac25,000 in two personal bank accounts and has outstanding judgment debts of more than \u20ac10.7 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The lengthy civil case against former banker Michael Fingleton, who is alleged to have negligently mismanaged the Irish…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,10476,19,17,78052,78051],"class_list":{"0":"post-129666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-high-court","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-irish-nationwide-building-society","14":"tag-michael-fingleton"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}