{"id":240460,"date":"2025-12-19T05:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T05:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/240460\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T05:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T05:13:09","slug":"landlord-marc-godart-disqualified-as-a-company-director-for-five-years-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/240460\/","title":{"rendered":"Landlord Marc Godart disqualified as a company director for five years \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Controversial <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/landlord\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/landlord\/\">landlord<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/marc-godart\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/marc-godart\/\">Marc Godart<\/a>, a director of 40 Irish companies, has been disqualified from acting as a company director by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/corporate-enforcement-authority\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/corporate-enforcement-authority\/\">Corporate Enforcement Authority<\/a> (CEA).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The disqualification, which lasts for five years, was made in the public interest, the authority said. The Luxembourg native voluntarily accepted the disqualification without the initiation of High Court proceedings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mr Godart (36) and his companies have been before the courts on numerous occasions in recent years for a variety of reasons, including illegal evictions, the unauthorised letting of property on a short-term basis, the non-payment of awards made to tenants by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/residential-tenancies-board-prtb\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/residential-tenancies-board-prtb\/\">Residential Tenancies Board<\/a>, and fire safety issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The multimillion-euro property ownership and residential letting business run Mr Godart has been the subject of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/crime-law\/courts\/2024\/07\/09\/judge-gives-landlord-marc-godart-nine-days-to-pay-more-than-13000-in-damages-to-two-former-tenants\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/crime-law\/courts\/2024\/07\/09\/judge-gives-landlord-marc-godart-nine-days-to-pay-more-than-13000-in-damages-to-two-former-tenants\/\">extensive media coverage<\/a>, including in The Irish Times, as has his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/crime-law\/courts\/2024\/07\/04\/wrc-orders-firm-linked-to-landlord-marc-godart-to-pay-2000-compensation-to-former-worker\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/crime-law\/courts\/2024\/07\/04\/wrc-orders-firm-linked-to-landlord-marc-godart-to-pay-2000-compensation-to-former-worker\/\">treatment of his employees<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/2024\/06\/03\/luxembourg-landlord-marc-godart-renting-beds-to-refugees-in-premises-without-fire-certificate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/2024\/06\/03\/luxembourg-landlord-marc-godart-renting-beds-to-refugees-in-premises-without-fire-certificate\/\">his provision<\/a> of emergency accommodation to international protection applicants.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cCompany law confers significant benefits and privileges on those wishing to engage in commercial activity through corporate activity,\u201d the authority said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In return for these benefits, it said, company law requires adherence to certain minimum standards of governance, transparency and probity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIn this case, based on underlying information collated and carefully assessed and on associated enquiries, the CEA took the view that disqualification was warranted in the public interest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In February last year, following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/housing-planning\/2024\/02\/17\/working-for-marc-godart-paper-directors-shadow-airbnb-accounts-ruthless-staff-practices\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/housing-planning\/2024\/02\/17\/working-for-marc-godart-paper-directors-shadow-airbnb-accounts-ruthless-staff-practices\/\">a report<\/a> in The Irish Times, the then t\u00e1naiste and now Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin, speaking in the D\u00e1il, said the matters disclosed should be of interest to the corporate watchdog, Dublin City Council, the Workplace Relations Commission, An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na and potentially other parties.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A request for a response from Mr Godart concerning his disqualification met with no response.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/housing-planning\/2024\/02\/17\/working-for-marc-godart-paper-directors-shadow-airbnb-accounts-ruthless-staff-practices\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Working for Marc Godart: \u2018Paper directors\u2019, shadow Airbnb accounts, ruthless staff practicesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Luxembourg businessman began incorporating Irish companies in 2014 for a range of business purposes, including investing in Irish property. The Irish companies, which include Green Label Short Lets Ltd and Green Label Property Investments Ltd, are owned by companies in Luxembourg which are in turn owned by Mr Godart.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In recent company filings Mr Godart has given an address in Riga, Latvia, which is also the address of a Latvian company called Green Assets Ltd. Green Assets is involved in the renting or management of its own or leased real estate, according to Latvian records.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In March  last year Mr Justice Brian Cregan, in the High Court, described Mr Godart\u2019s corporate structure with holding companies in Luxembourg as \u201cclearly quite a murky structure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He was commenting in a case where <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/housing-planning\/2023\/06\/02\/its-so-painful-its-so-difficult-says-woman-illegally-evicted-by-marc-godart-firm\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/housing-planning\/2023\/06\/02\/its-so-painful-its-so-difficult-says-woman-illegally-evicted-by-marc-godart-firm\/\">former tenant Lizet Pena-Herrera<\/a> took proceedings against Green Label Short Lets Ltd over the non-payment of a debt arising from her illegal eviction. Mr Godart swore an affidavit saying the company did not have the money to pay the debt and that his Irish companies were obliged to remit money to his Luxembourg companies under the corporate structure that had been put in place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">After the court ordered Mr Godart to appear in court to answer questions, Green Label borrowed money and settled the debt with Ms Pena-Herrara. Mr Godart was made personally liable for 80 per cent of the legal costs awarded to Ms Pena-Herrera and against Green Label because, the judge said, he \u201cacted in bad faith and with impropriety from start to finish in the conduct of these proceedings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The latest accounts filed in Luxembourg for Mr Godart\u2019s two companies there, Itzig Sarl and Hesper SA, are for 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Controversial landlord Marc Godart, a director of 40 Irish companies, has been disqualified from acting as a company&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,125939,18,13,14,6,19,17,40228,11,12,15,16,126744,5,41275,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-240460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-corporate-enforcement-authority","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-landlord","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-marc-godart","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-residential-tenancies-board-prtb","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115744525763982647","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240460","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=240460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}