High Court Recognises Northern Ireland IVA

The High Court of Ireland has in a recent case recognised and enforced the terms of an individual voluntary arrangement (“IVA”) under the law of Northern Ireland.

In an ex tempore judgment, delivered on 1 December 2025, in Re Keating (application for recognition of IVA of Raymond Hugh Gallogly) ¹ Mr Justice Oisín Quinn ordered that the IVA, which was approved under the law of Northern Ireland, be recognised and its terms enforced in Ireland. The court also enforced a stay in place under the law of Northern Ireland with regard to creditor actions.

Although there is not, as yet at least, a written judgment containing the court’s reasoning, it appears to have relied on a line of recent cases including the decision in 2012 of the High Court in  Re Mount Capital Fund Limited ² in which the court granted a foreign liquidator an order in aid assisting with the collection of books, records and assets and providing for the examination under oath of parties of relevance to the liquidation. The Irish courts have in other cases granted orders in aid recognising a foreign liquidator’s authority to act on behalf of a foreign company and assisted a foreign trustee in bankruptcy in connection with the sale of a property. The present case however represents the furthest an Irish court has gone in recognising / enforcing foreign insolvencies outside of the European Insolvency Regulation regime.

This judgment would seem, if followed in future cases, to constitute the adoption of the modified universalist approach of the courts of England and Wales in a number of high profile decisions. This was perhaps not anticipated in light of a comment by Mr Justice Finnegan in the Supreme Court in Re Flightlease (Ireland) Limited ³ in 2012 to the effect that legislative intervention would be required in order to pursue this approach in Ireland. It remains to be seen which approach the Irish courts will take in any future case, particularly if any such future application is contested.

Footnotes

^{1 High Court Record No, H.MCA.2025.0000534}

^{2 [2012] IEHC 97}

^{3 [2012] IESC 12}

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