Businessman Peter White and members of his family are being sued over the alleged non-payment of commercial loans and alleged debts now amounting to more than €5.6m.

Mr Justice Robert Haughton in the Commercial Court yesterday admitted four sets of proceedings brought by Feniton Property Finance DAC against Mr White, a restaurateur and developer, his wife Alicia, and their son Trevor White, the former publisher of 'The Dubliner' magazine, and also against his wife Susan Jane White, a cookbook author.

The court was told the cumulative amount of debt sued for across the four sets of proceedings is €5.673m and arises in the main from an alleged breach of a settlement agreement entered into in May 2017 in relation to a number of loan facilities advanced years previously. The settlement agreement, the court heard, allowed for a lot of debt forgiveness.

Rossa Fanning SC, for Feniton, told the court the settlement agreement was allegedly breached in September 2017 when a payment of €4m was not made.

At issue in the case also is the house at Mountpleasant Square, Ranelagh, Dublin, where Trevor White lives with his wife and their two children and which is owned by a trust, the Mountpleasant Settlement. Its trustees are Trevor White and his mother and father.
Vacant possession of this property is now sought in the claim for judgment against the trustees....
...In an affidavit, Susan Jane White objected to the admission of the proceedings to the Commercial Court.

She said the family had made various improvements to the house at Mountpleasant Square including €15,000 worth of landscaping and a €2,000 wooden playhouse on stilts for their children. There was also a vegetable and herb garden planted as a learning centre for their family.
Ms White said she designed and created a working kitchen in the basement of their home which had become the centre of both her home and professional life.

But in High Court papers seen by the Sunday Independent, Mr White claims that he is owed €125,500 in unpaid rent and that, apart from one payment of €19,400 in August, he hasn't received rent for several periods during 2010.

Mr White, with an address in Wellington Road, Dublin, and his Isle of Man-based property company Blue Nile Holdings, have taken the case against Mr John Shanahan, the wealthy America-based businessman and owner of JMS International.

The yearly rent for the plush Georgian building on St Stephen's Green, where the owner's son Sean Shanahan is believed to have an apartment, is €500,000 a year.

Like many other restaurants, Shanahan's is engaged in on-going attempts to re-negotiate its rent downwards, but talks between the landlord and the directors of the company have yet to be finalised.

In a letter marked 'strictly private', Mr White, one of Dublin's most respected property owners, told Shanahan's manager Martin Clegg that he was "naturally concerned that the economic slowdown has had such a dramatic effect on Shanahan's business".

"The present economic downturn is affecting everybody and there is no guarantee as to how long it will last," he says. "Mr John Shanahan has of course personally guaranteed the rental payments and we have no doubt he is an honourable man."

He adds: "We therefore feel the answer to the current situation is for Mr Shanahan to support his venture, as many other business owners have had to do, until such time as the economy improves."

Ms Justice Bronagh O'Hanlon rejected claims by Brendan O'Rourke, who married Diane O'Rourke in August 2004, that he was led to believe Furness Hall in Naas was, or would become, the property of himself and Diane O'Rourke after three years of marriage.
Nor had he shown the property was a wedding "gift" to the couple from her parents, the judge ruled...
...She also noted their daughter had in 2012 surrendered keys of the property to Ulster Bank which claims sums due to it under loans made to Dermot O'Rourke are a multiple of the value of Furness Hall.
The judge said Brendan O'Rourke remains in possession of Furness Hall, has had use of it rent free for 13 years, has excluded all others from it over "a long number of years" and has used it for rental and business purposes...
...The judge said Dermot O'Rourke agreed in June 2004 to buy Furness Hall for €3.65m. The property was to be acquired by Dermot O'Rourke and his wife Perle as trustees for the benefit of their daughter Diane
She dismissed Brendan O'Rourke's claims the use of the trust structure was motivated solely by tax considerations and not out of Dermot O'Rourke's concerns about the marriage.
She accepted Dermot O'Rourke's evidence the property was bought in trust and he had concerns about the marriage between Brendan O'Rourke and his then 23-year-old daughter.
It was "quite clear" the legal title to Furness Hall is, and has at all material times, been in the name of Dermot O'Rourke and his wife Perle, she found.