On February 8, 2022, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Meyer, J.) enter its Order denying defendant Gayle Killilea’s post-trial motions seeking a directed verdict or new trial in the fraudulent transfer action brought against her by Thomas H. Curran Associates’s client, Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Trustee Richard M. Coan in the bankruptcy case commenced by her ex-husband, former prominent Irish real estate developer Sean Dunne. After the collapse of the Irish real estate market, Dunne and Killilea moved to Greenwich, Connecticut leaving Dunne’s Irish lenders and other creditors with almost one billion Euro in debt. After the Irish bank restructuring agency known as NAMA commenced suit against Dunne and Killilea in Connecticut state court, Dunne filed for bankruptcy in early 2013. The Trustee’s avoidance and recovery action soon followed, and Trustee Coan engaged Thomas H. Curran Associates as his special counsel.
The Court entered its Order after extensive briefing and oral argument in the Fall of 2021 following the Court’s entry of final Judgment in July 2021. The Judgment follows the Jury Verdict obtained by Thomas H. Curran Associates for the Trustee in June 2019 in which the jury awarded in excess of twenty million dollars in damages to the Bankruptcy Estate of Sean Dunne on the Trustee’s claims for numerous fraudulent transfers made by Sean Dunne to his then wife Gayle Killilea, including Dunne’s transfer of the “Walford” residential property in Dublin, Ireland, during the height of the Irish property market frenzy. The jury entered its Verdict after a more than four-week trial conducted in New Haven in which the jury also avoided as fraudulent, multiple transfers of millions of Euro made by Dunne to Killilea’s Swiss bank account and other monies and real properties under Irish, US bankruptcy and Connecticut law. The Court’s Order disposes of the last remaining trial court challenges to the Jury Verdict. The Court already denied the Debtor Sean Dunne’s similar post-trial motions in July 2021 on similar grounds. In addition to the post-trial Order, the Court also entered an Order modifying its interim stay pending appeal of the Judgment to the Second Circuit. Under the Court’s Order, Killilea was required to post an additional amount of approximately $5.6 million dollars in security, market and sell a home in Greenwich built by Dunne and Killilea worth approximately $4 million dollars, terminate the mortgages granted to Killilea’s off-shore insider entity that encumbered the property, and to turn over monies held in escrow in another bankruptcy case pending in Connecticut. Significantly, the Court also ordered the turnover of the proceeds of the Walford sale to the Trustee, amounting to more than $12.5 million dollars. In its Order, the Court largely adopted the Trustee’s positions on imposing stay conditions, which followed extensive briefing and oral argument in Fall 2021 by Thomas H. Curran Associates. The Court previously awarded in excess of 1.4 million Euro in pre-judgment interest to the Trustee following extensive briefing and oral argument by Thomas H. Curran Associates in 2021. The Trustee now has full security for his Judgment pending appeal. The Court’s recent Orders represent a resounding victory by Thomas H. Curran Associates for its client, Trustee Coan, in a highly complex cross-border avoidance action initiated in 2015 in which Thomas H. Curran Associates has doggedly pursued the Debtor and Killilea for the benefit of the Estate. Thomas H. Curran Associates will represent the Trustee as appellate counsel in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.