An ailing US electronics company is trying to "hive off" its prospering European subsidiaries in order to frustrate a judgment for almost $1.9 million obtained against it by a Galway firm, the High Court has heard.

Mr Klaus Reichert, counsel for American Power Conversion Corporation, Ballybrit Industrial Estate, Galway, told Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan that CHS Electronics of Miami, Florida, was "hopelessly insolvent". He said it owned Romak Computers, in Dundalk, Co Louth, a successful company which it intended to hive off on to a new entity called EuropaIT along with its other European subsidiaries.

Mr Reichert said his Galway client was very concerned that the proposed transfer would remove from Ireland the only asset against which judgment could be executed.

Mr Justice Finnegan granted the Galway firm an interim injunction restraining transfer of the US group's shares in Romak to any other entity.