On July 19, 2021, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut entered Judgment in favor of Thomas H. Curran Associates’s client, Richard M. Coan, as Chapter 7 Trustee for the Bankruptcy Estate of Sean Dunne (the “Trustee”) on his claims of actual and constructive fraudulent transfers against Sean Dunne’s (the “Debtor”) ex-wife Gayle Killilea Dunne (“Killilea”). The claims were brought under the United States Bankruptcy Code, Irish law and Connecticut State law. The Trustee alleged, and he proved at trial, that the Debtor had transferred real properties located in Ireland and monies to a bank account located in Switzerland, among other transfers, to his then wife Killilea. The Trustee proved these transfers to be actually and/or constructively fraudulent in relation to his creditors, including major Irish banks. The Judgment resulted from a successful 5 week jury trial conducted by Thomas H. Curran Associates in May and June of 2019 before the Honorable Jeffrey A. Meyer, sitting in New Haven that resulted in a nearly 18 million Euro jury verdict in favor of the Trustee and against Killilea.
Prior to filing for bankruptcy protection the Debtor, Dunne, was a prominent real estate developer in Ireland, having constructed major residential and commercial development projects around Dublin during the Celtic Tiger period of Irish growth, using funds borrowed from multiple Irish banks to which he owed almost one billion dollars when he filed for bankruptcy protection on March 29, 2013 (the “Petition Date”). During the trial, the Trustee presented evidence of the Debtor’s extensive fraudulent transfers to his wife that spanned a period from 2008 to the Petition Date, including his transfer of the “Walford” property on the Petition Date for no consideration to an offshore Cypriot entity formed by his wife. Walford was acquired by Dunne as the most expensive residential property in Ireland, costing 56 Million Euro in 2005. Thomas H. Curran Associates presented evidence comprised of hundreds of documentary exhibits and numerous witnesses showing that the Debtor had fabricated and backdated documents, created sham trusts and deliberately concealed his actions from the Trustee, his creditors and NAMA, the Irish national bank restructuring agency, in order to perpetuate his fraudulent transfers to his wife. In fact, during the trial, Ireland’s leading authority on Irish property and conveyancing law, Professor John C. Wylie, testified for the defendants regarding the creation of trusts under Irish law. After hearing this testimony, and the extensive evidence presented by the Trustee, the Jury found that the Debtor did not hold the Walford property “in trust” for Killilea and that his transfer of that property to her on the Petition Date was actually and constructively fraudulent under the United States Bankruptcy Code.
Since the verdict was entered on June 4, 2019, the Trustee and defendants have prosecuted various post-trial motions, which recently resulted in the Court awarding the Trustee an additional 1.4 Million Euro in pre-judgment interest on his verdict amount. The Court’s entry of Judgment follows a detailed 71 page omnibus ruling on the fully litigated post-trial motions. The Court denied the Debtor’s extensive post trial motions seeking to reverse the Verdict. The Court rejected the Debtor’s theory that a post-verdict Irish High Court’s confirmation of an Irish tax court decision, that was submitted by the Debtor to collaterally attack the Verdict, somehow effected the outcome of the trial. The Verdict and Judgment comes as the result of an almost decade long battle waged by the Debtor’s creditors, in Ireland and the U.S., after the Debtor entered restructuring and workout discussions with NAMA, his largest creditor in 2010. The Debtor and his wife thereafter fled Ireland for New York and Connecticut.
The Debtor’s bankruptcy filing followed the filing and prosecution of a Connecticut state court fraudulent transfer action pursued by Attorneys Curran and Antonelli on behalf of NAMA during their tenure at a prior firm.
Thomas H. Curran Associates’s United States District Court trial team, led by Thomas H. Curran and Peter Antonelli, included current Thomas H. Curran Associates members Douglass Lawrence and Christopher Marks.
Thomas H. Curran Associates, LLC regularly represents private equity groups, distressed investors, bankruptcy trustees, governmental institutions and other creditors in complex global cross-border avoidance and recovery actions, leading trusted insolvency professionals worldwide.