On the go: Former property developer Michael McNamara has been allowed to shield his savings in an Irish pension scheme from creditors after the High Court confirmed its own 2020 ruling.
In 2009, McNamara set up a company called Simcoe Industries with his wife.
McNamara and his wife moved to London in July 2011 to live and work, and received payments from the Simcoe Scheme trustees the following month.
He was made bankrupt in 2012 while living in the UK, where pension scheme funds are not available to creditors in the event of bankruptcy.
The joint trustees of McNamara’s bankruptcy had tried to claim his pension investments to use in the bankruptcy proceedings, arguing that these were part of his estate.
In 2020, the High Court ruled that the entrepreneur, who had made a significant contribution to the Simcoe Scheme before coming to the UK, was entitled to retain his Simcoe benefits on the same law that protected UK pension assets from creditors.
This verdict was subsequently upheld by the European Court of Justice in the same year. The ECJ retained authority over the case during the UK’s Brexit transition period in 2020.
The ECJ said in its ruling that the outcome depended on there being no public interest in McNamara’s pension funds being handed over to creditors.
“It’s pretty hard to see why that would succeed,” said James Bingham, partner at Sackers.
On February 15 2022, the High Court confirmed its judgment.
“Once the ECJ had supported the original ruling it seemed unlikely the High Court would need to change the original decision,” an LCP response to the ruling noted.
