by Matthew Austin February-02-2017 in Litigation & Dispute Resolution
The question of when interest accumulates, and the rate at which it accumulates, on disputed sums in court proceedings can be very important, particularly where the disputed sum is significant. Another important factor is the length of time that court proceedings can take to resolve, potentially causing interest to accumulate.
Where a court orders the payment of a sum of money the court also has discretion to order the payment of interest on the whole or any part of that sum. Furthermore, the court has discretion as to whether interest should be awarded for the whole or any part of the period between the dates when the cause of action accrued and the date of judgment. The court is precluded from exercising discretion to award interest of this kind if there is an existing contractual right to interest in respect of the sum awarded. Discretionary interest ordered in this way is known as “Courts Act interest” as the discretion comes from Section 22 of the Courts Act, 1981.
Recently, in the case of Reaney v Interlink Ireland Ltd [2016] IECA 238 the Court of Appeal considered the issue of the exercise of the Court’s discretion to award interest. Judge Finlay Geoghegan described the rationale behind Courts Act interest: “To put it another way: it is intended to compensate a person for being out of the money awarded from the time he ought to have received it to the date of judgment, provided, however, other facts make it just between the parties to make such an award.”
The Court held that a necessary consideration for the court is whether there has been any delay in the prosecution of the claim for the sum in question. In Reaney the Court of Appeal found there had been some delay which disallowed the plaintiff from recovering interest during the period of delay. The Court went on to hold that interest could run from the time when the contractual obligations in question had been breached and not the date of the High Court judgment, some years later.
On 1 January 2017 the rate at which interest accumulated on judgment debts changed from 8% to 2% pursuant to a Ministerial Order signed by the Minister for Justice and Equality.
A full copy of the Court of Appeal’s judgment in Reaney can be found here.
Back to Full NewsShare this article:
About the Author
Matthew Austin
Matthew is a partner in the Commercial & Business team and has considerable expertise in a range of practice areas, having acted for Irish and International clients in domestic and multi-jurisdictional issues. Matthew has advised in civil and administrative law disputes and in regulatory and advisory matters including insolvency/restructuring, IP, defamation and media law, competition and consumer protection and data protection.