Members of the firm write on Irish litigation, pensions and financial regulation, tax and the reasoning of courts and tribunals. Articles published by the firm appear in full below, followed by pieces published in the Irish Law Times and other journals.
Adam McCarthy · 15 October 2026
A lis pendens can freeze the sale of a property for years for the price of a form, with no judge, no undertaking as to damages and no test of the merits. That power has been under pressure in the courts for a decade and in 2026 it met Goldstein, where the High Court held that a challenge to a receiver’s appointment cannot support a registration at all and then criticised the tactics used to stop the sale by other means. Adam McCarthy explains where the remedy comes from, what it can and cannot do, and how the proposed 28 day rule will change the calculation for anyone thinking of registering one.
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Robert Bourke · 15 October 2026
Five years of examinership judgments have turned a set of discretionary considerations into settled policy. The process is for real enterprises with real jobs, the petitioner must come to court with everything and at the right time, the court will reach foreign companies whose centre is here, it will confirm a conditional scheme only where the conditions serve the rescue and not a party, and it will not confirm a scheme whose creditor classes are wrongly drawn. Robert Bourke reviews the cases, the 2022 reforms and the new statutory duty on directors, and explains why time is of the essence for a board deciding whether to seek protection.
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Alan Brophy · 15 October 2026
The lockdowns tested commercial leases and the courts answered plainly. The rent is payable unless the lease says otherwise. Since then the rescue process for small companies, the new rates regime and a divided market have changed the landscape, while the leases themselves have not changed at all. Alan Brophy sets out the concerns landlords and tenants should have now, why a lease has to be read in real time so that its dates and triggers are not missed, and whether a rent review should be triggered or left in the hope that the other party forgets.
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Robert Bourke · 15 October 2026
The Companies Act 2014 gives shareholders who fall out a remedy, not a plan, and the remedy is litigation. Robert Bourke explains what a shareholders’ agreement settles while the parties are still on good terms, why it should be in place before the first outside investment, how key person and shareholder protection cover ensure that the estate of a shareholder who dies is paid by an insurer rather than left holding shares, and how the agreement, the insurance and the shareholders’ wills can be brought into line.
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Adam McCarthy · 15 October 2026
The High Court dismissed possession proceedings for want of jurisdiction, holding that section 3 of the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2013 is engaged where the property is the mortgagor’s principal private residence when proceedings are issued, whatever its status when the mortgage was created. The firm acted for the successful first named defendant.
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Robert Bourke · 15 October 2026
The High Court refused to enforce an English County Court judgment for a spread betting debt, holding that section 36 of the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956 is a rule of law essential to the Irish legal order and that recognition would be manifestly contrary to public policy under Article 34(1) of the Brussels I Regulation. Robert Bourke appeared as junior counsel for the successful defendant.
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Robert Bourke · 31 December 2025
How the Irish transposition of IORP II and the statutory instruments that followed it have reshaped scheme consolidation, bulk and overseas transfers, and the position of small self-administered arrangements and non-standard PRSAs.
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Adam McCarthy · Irish Judicial Studies Journal, Vol 9(1), pp 173–195, 2025
An examination of the burden that frivolous and vexatious litigation places on the Irish courts, the remedies available to meet it, including litigation restriction orders and security for costs, the comparative approaches taken in England, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, and the case for coordinated reform.
