The ongoing case in Delaware, in which developer John Flynn is trying to scupper IBRC's application for bankruptcy protection for $1 billion of its US assets, is pretty serious stuff. One of the bank's US lawyers appears to be a bit of a comedian, however, according to our snout in the Land of the Free.

Michael Forde, an eminent Dublin-based senior counsel, was preparing to give evidence via video-link to the court in support of Flynn's objections. Forde asked if he needed a Bible. No, replied the clerk. "You might need one when we're done," quipped Eric Waxman, of IBRC's law firm Skadden. Game on.

Jarlath Ryan, another Irish barrister, also gave evidence in favour of Flynn via video-link from Dublin. During some testy exchanges with Waxman, the US lawyer kept moving out of range of the microphones, prompting Ryan to complain that he couldn’t hear him. Waxman retorted that he was moving around “like a cobra” – pretty apt, considering some of the venomous exchanges that followed.

Apparently, the US lawyer gave our learned friends a bit of a rough time.

After the withdrawal of Paul Singer’s vulture funds from the case, Flynn and John McCann, a Swiss-based Irish developer, are now the sole objectors to IBRC’s Chapter 15 application.

Flynn, a US resident, was in court along with his wife, Leona. He is based in the Sunshine State of Florida these days.

The lucky so-and-so.