High Court allows McGregor whiskey dispute to proceed
The hearing of a High Court dispute over an alleged oral agreement giving 5 per cent of a Conor McGregor-founded whiskey brand to his former MMA sparring partner will go ahead later this year after a judge approved moves to amend the date of the original claim.
Ms Justice Nessa Cahill, on Wednesday, granted Artem Lobov permission to amend his pleadings in the case in which he claims Mr McGregor made an oral agreement with him for a 5 per cent share, made in a gym in 2017.
The court heard Mr Lobov is now saying the meeting at which the oral agreement was made took place on October 9th, 2017, not September 2017 as originally claimed. It arose after Mr Lobov, while preparing for the hearing, found an old mobile phone which clarified the meeting was not in September 2017.
It was also in circumstances where Mr Lobov knew Mr McGregor had been defeated in a boxing match with Floyd Mayweather in August 2017. The court heard Mr McGregor was in Ibiza in September and said he could not have been present on the date Mr Lobov originally claimed.
READ MORE
Russia-born Mr Lobov claims he was involved in the creation of, and working on setting up, the 'Proper Number Twelve' Irish whiskey brand which was reported to be sold for US$600 million (€530 million) to Proximo Spirits in 2021. Mr McGregor was reported to have received $130 million from the sale.
Proximo cut ties with Mr McGregor and the brand following last year's separate High Court action in which a civil jury found he should pay almost €250,000 for raping a woman, Nikita Hand, in a Dublin hotel in December 2018. That decision is being appealed.
The hearing of the whiskey claim was due to go ahead this week but was postponed to allow Mr Lobov, who lives in Mulhuddart, Dublin, apply to amend his case after he had discovered the old phone with information alerting him to the October date.
The McGregor side, who denied there was any oral agreement, opposed the amendment.
On Wednesday, after hearing arguments from lawyers for both sides, Ms Justice Cahill said she was satisfied to allow the amendment. She approved directions for the progress of the case to hearing but noted it is unlikely to get a date until after the long courts vacation.
Earlier Andrew Walker SC said Mr Lobov had told his solicitor Dermot McNamara that he discovered the old phone in March.
While his side accepted it would have been far better if the amendment to the claim had been made sooner, the law was clear that a litigant can bring an application to amend at any time and the court has a wide ranging discretion to grant it.
This was not a case where there was irredeemable prejudice to the defendant and it was also not bound to fail, which are the only two barriers to an amendment, he said.
He accepted the defence was going to have to meet its three witnesses who were to give evidence on behalf of Mr McGregor so they can now have to deal with where they were in the relevant week of October 2017. This was not insurmountable but it would take more time, he said.
Mr Walker also accepted the amendment will have cost implications for his client.
Remy Farrell SC, for Mr McGregor, agreed there was no irredeemable prejudice or that the case was bound to fail.
'But those who receive absolution have to admit the sin or at least provide an explanation as to how this occurred', he said.
There was 'no interest' on the part of the Lobov side to address that, he said. 'The reason was to secure a litigious advantage as something that could be dealt with on the day of the trial', he said.
It arose in circumstances where after Mr Lobov told his lawyer about the new phone, a decision was taken not to reveal this until the eleventh hour, he said.
The court would, in those circumstances, be entitled to not grant permission to amend the case but could otherwise have been granted, he said.
Ms Justice Cahill said she would give reasons in a written judgment in due course for her decision to allow the amendment along with dealing with the question of costs.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
7 hours ago
- Irish Times
Murdered farmer Michael Gaine was not afraid to be ‘soft, loving and kind', funeral told
The requiem mass of murdered farmer Michael 'Mike' Gaine has heard that he was 'a proud Kerryman, and an even prouder Kenmare man' who was incredibly generous and would 'chip in to help any time and any place'. Mourners at the Holy Cross Church in Kenmare, Co Kerry were told that Mr Gaine was not afraid to show his emotions and was 'soft and loving, caring and affectionate, kind and considerate'. His cousin Eoghan Clarke said he was honoured to speak at the funeral on behalf of Michael's wife Janice. He said that Mike did the work of three men on his farm while still managing to carve out multiple hours in the day in which he helped others. 'I recall on one occasion when Mike was convincing one of his friends to head out for dinner one evening with the friend – who shall remain nameless – complaining that he was too tired. Mike shut down that argument immediately by replying: 'Sure, we're all tired'. That was Michael – he loved life, he always made the most of it and he truly lived every single moment. READ MORE 'Whether you met him during lambing or while on a trip away to a car show or rally event, he always had the iconic twinkle in his eye ... the 'I'm delighted to see you', 'I'm in great form', 'let's go and enjoy ourselves' glint in his eye. 'Michael was generous. Incredibly generous. He had time for everyone and would chip in to help any time and any place.' Mr Clarke read out a quote from a friend which he said summed up Mr Gaine's generosity and thoughtfulness better than he felt he ever could. Addressing Mr Gaine, the friend said: 'I will always remember the way you offered help before I ever even asked for it.' Eoghan Clarke, cousin of murdered Co Kerry farmer Michael Gaine, speaking at his funeral. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Mourners were also told of how Mr Gaine met his wife Janice on a fateful New Year's Eve. Mr Clarke said Janice had travelled from Jakarta to visit her parents in Kerry for Christmas when a young Mike, looking dapper in his dress suit, plucked up the courage to speak to her at the bar. 'Michael explained that he was heading to Australia soon and in the days before Google and smartphones, Michael explained to Janice that Garuda airlines – Indonesia's national airline – seemed to offer the best value. Janice, presumably intrigued by Michael's extensive knowledge of flight routes to and from Australia, agreed to Michael's invitation to dinner before she then returned to Indonesia in the new year. 'For the next few years, Michael kept Telecom Éireann in business, feeding coins into one of the payphones in Kenmare to speak to Janice in Indonesia and then Taiwan, where he came to visit her. The rest is history.' Mr Clarke said that Michael's interests were as varied as his friend network. They included rallying, farming, current affairs, holidays to exotic places, DoneDeal, and all music – even opera. He added that by virtue of his incredible character, Mike attracted a lot of good people into his life. 'My own friends describe their first time meeting Mike and have said that he instantly gelled with them, made them feel at ease and showed a genuine interest in them. Another beautiful quote I have seen from a friend of Michael's was 'I always left in a better mood after talking to or bumping into you.' We will all miss Michael terribly.' Mourners proceed through the Holy Cross Church in Kenmare following Michael Gaine's funeral. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA The mass was celebrated by Fr George Hayes, parish priest in Kenmare along with Fr Sean Murphy. Fr Hayes said that the shocking murder of Mr Gaine had brought 'something terrible' in to the peaceful existence of locals. 'We are discommoded and feel at a loss. Over these weeks, since Michael went missing, we have asked so many questions – and, in life, sometimes, there are no answers.' Fr Hayes said that the focus of the funeral mass was on recovering the dignity of a much loved family member, friend and neighbour. 'Today is a day for recovering the dignity of Michael Gaine. Today we recover Michael's dignity because, today, we speak Michael's name with love. And it is the dignity of Michael's life, and not the manner of Michael's death, that will abide in our hearts. Here in this place, today, we recover Michael's dignity. We speak Michael's name with love.' He asked mourners to enjoy life and to lift people's spirits in the manner in which Mike did. 'In that way, Michael and his characteristics will live on. Rest easy Michael. Until we meet again.' Offertory symbols included a photo of Mr Gaine on his quad on his farm with cavalier dog Teddy, a holiday photo, a photo of the globe representing his love for current affairs and travel, a wedding photo, a CD, a photo of St Michael the Archangel, a photo of Mike and his rally car and his rally helmet. Mourners following the funeral of murdered Co Kerry farmer Michael Gaine at the Holy Cross Church in Kenmare. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA His widow Janice Gaine led the family out of the church at the conclusion of the mass holding his urn in her arms. Poignantly, the urn was in a sheepskin-lined basket. The funeral of Mr Gaine took place 11 weeks after he went missing from his farm in Kenmare. His disappearance was initially treated as a missing persons case. It was declared a murder investigation by gardaí on April 29th. Human remains found in fields and at the Gaine's farm in Kenmare in mid-May were confirmed as being those of Mr Gaine. A man in his 50s was arrested on May 19th last in connection with the murder. He was subsequently released without charge pending a file to the DPP. Mr Gaine is survived by his wife Janice, sisters Noreen and Catherine, nieces and nephews, his aunt Noreen Fitzpatrick, his close friends DJ and Shane and his wide circle of friends.
Sunday World
11 hours ago
- Sunday World
Drug criminal who once escaped jail fights CAB bid to empty bank account
The money was declared the proceeds of crime 11 years ago in case which McInerney had contested. A notorious criminal who once escaped from prison during a hospital visit said that he can't find a solicitor to fight his case against the Criminal Assets Bureau. Charles Darren McInerney from Portlaoise appeared at the High Court where Cab have applied to have €139,156 in a frozen bank account transferred to the State. It was previously heard he had asked to brought to court from the Midlands Prison to contest the move by CAB. Arriving in court with a prison escort he told the sitting judge that his own solicitor doesn't 'do these cases.' The money, which was originally in three separate accounts, was declared the proceeds of crime 11 years ago in case which McInerney had contested. The judge at that time dismissed McInerney's claims as to how the cash was generated as being 'quite unconvincing indeed.' He had denied being involved in crime and initially insisted his only income was from social welfare during the six years CAB found €519,702 had been lodged to his and his wife Margaret's bank account. Another €15,000 in a credit union account he said had come from the sale of a car although no vehicle had been registered to his name. In second affidavit, he said money came from horse breeding and dealing in cars, but these were ruled inadmissible when he failed to appear in court. McInerney said he had been left six horses by his late grandfather when he was 15 years of age. He claimed that from his inheritance he successfully bred horses which he sold 'at various fairs around the country'. Charles Darren McInerney News in 90 Seconds - 7th June Following on from that trade he said he moved into the car trade business and the money in the accounts was income from those businesses, he claimed. The judge said evidence was given by both CAB and senior gardai that McInerney was involved in the illegal drugs trade. He had 27 previous convictions including ones for the possession of illegal drugs as well as assault and animal cruelty. Evidence was given that gardai had found cannabis, a weighing scales and a knife in McInerney's house. He was involved in the sale and supply of controlled substances and the enforcement of debts, according to CAB. There was no evidence of income from any legitimate sources and neither he nor his wife had ever been employed, it was stated. An appeal was lodged with the Supreme Court over the receivership order, but is was withdrawn in 2015 and no appeal made against the order declaring the cash to be the proceeds of crime. Darren McInerney did a runner from custody in 2018 after being brought from the high-security Portlaoise Prison to the nearby regional hospital. The Sunday World previously reported that he had been transferred to the jail from the Midlands prison after an alleged assault on a prison officer. He remained unlawfully at large for a period of time sparking a garda appeal for information. The career criminal once got a five-month suspended sentence in October, 2010, for the ill treatment of animals. He was also ordered not to have ownership of animals at that time, yet despite the order he was later spotted by gardaí on a sulky on at least five occasions including racing while he had a child sitting on his lap. The Cab case has been adjourned until later this month.
Irish Daily Mirror
14 hours ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Swashbuckling giant Kyle Hayes divides opinion like no other GAA star
Of all the high-profile residents holding deeds to one of those prized condos on hurling's Main Street, none comes close to Kyle Hayes in their ability to ignite a wildfire. On or off the pitch, Hayes is the preferred accelerant for social media arsonists seeking to set the online world ablaze. Drop his name — his genius as a sportsman trailed by his deeply unsavoury past — into a conversation and, typically, it has the effect of a Molotov cocktail. Neither the game's alley fighters nor its most dementedly combative figures, not even Ireland's dean of the perpetually highly-strung, the hyper-emotional Davy Fitzgerald, can set summer so instantly aflame as Limerick's skyscraping five-time Allstar. That he was back in court less than 24 hours after last month's Man of the Match masterclass against today's Munster final opponents Cork reconfigured the entire All-Ireland debate, was a reminder of how the threads of his two lives have become so inextricably knotted. And of how seeking to disentangle one from the other will remain an exercise in futility for as long as the Kildimo Pallaskenry leviathan remains a lead player on championship Broadway. The swashbuckling giant who led the shattering undressing of the Rebels, whose blistering impact on the long days has exhausted the pundits' store of superlatives, co-habits with the author of an infinitely more sinister off-field backstory. A five time All-Ireland winner; a young man who avoided jail after receiving a two-year suspended sentence on two counts of violent disorder inside and outside a nightclub in Limerick in 2019. He was later ordered to do 180 hours community service. Ironically, the more successful Hayes is at invading the vital moments in Limerick's mission to reclaim their status as the alpha males on the hurling landscape, the higher the volume is turned up on the chorus of outrage. When he is awarded a Man of the Match or, as he was last season, an Allstar (the awards entirely justified by on-field displays, the lone criteria the judging panels are empowered to assess), the condemnation screeches to a deafening crescendo. There are two constituencies feeding the frenzy. The first and the loudest are the social media attack dogs who instantly scramble for the high moral ground every time a controversy arises, their arguments shrill and one-dimensional and lacking nuance or perspective. But there are others, often compassionate, empathetic individuals, who are nonetheless alarmed that an individual found guilty of violent disorder, who has never expressed remorse and who received just 180 hours community service even after breaching the terms of his original sentence, retains a starring role in one of Ireland's most high-profile cultural celebrations. Their reasoning is more subtle, more heartfelt and not so easily dismissed. Some commentators in a counter-argument believe it irrational to hold athletes up as moral exemplars, that once the courts have spoken, life must go on. Even if it is an entirely logical assertion, it ignores the extreme emotions involved. That Hayes is able to shut out all the white noise each time he plays, that he shows no sign of surrendering his place at the centre of the hurling world even while finding himself surrounded by such ceaseless tumult, is, of itself, quite remarkable. At 6'5', his physique as muscular and streamlined and carrying the same sense of majesty as the thoroughbreds who will contest today's Epsom Derby, he is the Platonic ideal of an athlete so often imagined by ancient Greek sculptors. He has maybe the greatest arsenal of gifts - the pulverising power and torque of an Airbus A330, an Apache helicopter's lift and nimble manoeuvrability, a B-52 bomber's deadly payload of obliterating missiles — of anybody who has played the game. Cork, propelled into that recent round-robin tie on a tide of anticipation, departed less than two hours later nursing the kind of traumas that must have invaded their night time imaginings ever since. With Hayes rampant, Limerick were again a force of invincible self-belief, a reborn team delivering perhaps the magnum opus of John Kiely's star-spangled reign. In full flight and fizzing like a well-fletched arrow across a rectangle of grass, their number six offered a jolting reminder of why he rates among sport's most arresting and magnificent vistas. Watching again the footage of his wonder goal against Tipp in the 2021 Munster final, different elements of his jinking, jaw-dropping solo gallop — a run at once thunderous and balletic — evoke Lamine Yamal, Rudolph Nureyev, Roger Federer, the Road Runner confounding Wile E Coyote, a Lamborghini Aventador and an 18-wheel juggernaut. Tipp's defence appear as helpless as traffic cops trying to stop a runaway buffalo from breaking a red light. The fever of excitement surrounding Hayes that afternoon, his capacity to deliver such irresistible moments, was a key component in Limerick's four-in-a-row champions announcing their separation from the rest of the field. His success in combining demonic intensity with flourishes of artistic beauty in the most recent meeting with Cork — the player exhibiting what one Joe DiMaggio biographer describes as a 'glint of godhood' — strengthens the arguments of those who are happy to declare the 26-year-old the greatest hurler in the country. He is unquestionably the most divisive. If Hayes has one or two rivals for the title of Ireland's most influential hurler — led by his Limerick teammate, the lyrical master conductor Cian Lynch — he is unrivalled as the most contentious. Ahead of tonight's rematch, there will be discussion of a sporting life bejewelled by achievement, a freakish talent who combines an engraver's touch with the kind of physical dimensions that might eclipse the sun. As he swatted the Rebels aside 20 days ago, a rampaging Hayes had Dónal Óg Cusack flicking through the history books in search of a meaningful reference point. 'This Limerick we ever seen a better team than them? What a machine they looked, so well engineered, resilient, strong, every part is working and up for the fight everywhere.' Anthony Daly was just as effusive: 'Hayes is like a gazelle. It's not just his breaking out, it's the tackling, it's the handling at the last second, it's the whole package he gives you there at six.' 'Hayes is the leader of this Limerick team,' was the unequivocal verdict of Ger Loughnane's one-time sideline Sancho Panza, Tony Considine. Many, horrified by the court case that put Hayes on the front pages, look at his story from a different angle, declining to see beyond the self-inflicted wounds of his past. His suspended sentence on two charges of violent disorder inside and outside the Icon nightclub in 2019 — charges he denied at the 2023 trial — sits like an ugly, distinguishing visible-to-the-world birthmark. The evidence heard in court was authentically shocking. Many took issue with John Kiely's courthouse character reference, particularly the suggestion that Hayes 'accepts his part in that very disappointing night' and was 'very sorry'. How could that be, how could he have accepted his part and be sorry, went the counter argument, when he had pleaded not guilty? The feelings of his harshest critics are perhaps evoked in a memorable line from the political writer and former Clinton adviser, Sidney Blumenthal, in discussing Donald Trump's serial refusal to embrace the negative consequences of his actions. 'Trump's psychological equilibrium requires the constant rejection of his responsibility for the abrasive reality he churns up,' wrote Blumenthal. Whether or not Hayes is entangled by his conscience or is armoured against self-examination only he can truly say. What is certain is that he will race onto a Shannonside meadow this evening and the arena will rise to a fever pitch. Some to acclaim a phenomenal player, one they believe has advanced into the territory of competitive excellence accessible only to the all time greats. Others to toss their disgust like a Molotov cocktail onto the wildfire triggered every time Kyle Hayes steps onto one of summer's great stages.
