ALLIED IRISH Banks has secured a €25.9 million summary judgment order against Cork businessman and developer, John Fleming, over his guarantees of loans to Fleming Energy to buy a majority shareholding in a US energy company.

Mr Fleming – who had previously indicated he wanted to defend the claim – was no longer advancing a defence, Mr Justice Peter Kelly was told yesterday by Sarah McKechnie, for Mr Fleming. Her client was neither consenting to nor opposing judgment, she said.

In those circumstances, Mr Justice Kelly granted an application by Bill Shipsey SC, for AIB, to enter summary judgment in the amount of €25,994,340 plus costs and Courts Act interest from yesterday.

The claim arose from a guarantee executed on May 20th, 2008 by Mr Fleming, now with an address at Holbrook Close, Billericay, Essex, England.

The guarantee related to all liabilities to the bank to a maximum €26 million of Fleming Energy, with registered offices at New Cork Road, Bandon, Co Cork, a subsidiary of the JJ Fleming group of companies, and was part of the security provided for credit facilities advanced to Fleming Energy.

The main loan provided to Fleming Energy was $32.4 million advanced in June 2007 to assist with the purchase of a 51 per cent shareholding in Plymouth Energy LLC, a company registered in the US and established to purchase and develop a 57-acre site in Iowa.

AIB said it had agreed not to demand repayment of the loans while companies in the Fleming group were under court protection but, after after protection was ended last March, it issued demands for repayment.

Also last March, the bank had issued a demand under Mr Fleming’s guarantee and some €25.9 million was now due and owing, it claimed.

The High Court last March appointed a liquidator to three insolvent companies in the Fleming building group, which has debts of more than €1 billion, following the Supreme Court’s decision to end court protection for them on the basis they had advanced no reasonable survival schemes.