Industrial Development Agency (Ireland) v Avara Pharma Services Ltd (Approved)

             This judgment concerns an appeal from a judgment delivered ( ex tempore ) by Owens J. in the High Court on 18 th October 2024, whereby he granted the plaintiff's/respondent's application for summary judgment against the appellant in the sum of �1,193,634.

             Pursuant to the provisions of s. 41 of the State Airports (Shannon Group) Act 2014, the rights and obligations of Shannon Development were transferred to the respondent.�

             It was a condition of the Grant Agreement that, in the event a court should order the winding up of UCB, then Shannon Development would immediately be entitled to seek repayment of grants already paid by it to UCB.� In July 2019, an order was made for the winding up of Avara Shannon, which by this time stood in the shoes of UCB pursuant to the Novation Agreement.�

             On 9 th July 2021, Mr. Leonard M. Levie, a majority shareholder of the appellant, sent a letter to the then CEO of IDA Ireland, Mr. Martin Shanahan, regarding the request for repayment of the grant. �In this letter, Mr. Levie refers to investment by the Avara Group of �16m in Avara Shannon over a three-year period, which investment ultimately was lost owing to the failure of Avara Shannon. �He then refers to the correspondence sent on behalf of the respondent demanding repayment of the grant, as follows: -

"Recently, I received a very puzzling letter from your team, seeking the repayment of a grant awarded to UCB in December 2011 for a total amount of �1,193,634, payable immediately. My understanding is that the UCB Pharma Group benefited from the bulk of the referenced amount and that Avara received merely a trivial amount from this grant in 2018 . "