A case involving billionaire businessman John Magnier over the alleged sale of a large estate in Co Tipperary is due to get under way at the Commercial Court today.
Mr Magnier, his son John Paul Magnier and his daughter Katherine Wachman are suing Barne Estate owner Richard Thomson-Moore and three companies of IQEQ (Jersey), the holding company of the Barne Estate shares, over a purported sale that occurred on August 22nd, 2023.
They allege Mr Magnier and Mr Thomson-Moore agreed to the sale of the 751-acre (303-hectare) estate for a price of €15 million when at Mr Magnier’s home in Coolmore.
The estate, which is mostly fertile tillage land, comes with a three-storey, 12-bedroom mansion house modelled on a French chateau with manicured lawns in front running down to a lake that is stocked with trout. It has been in the Thomson-Moore family since the middle of the 17th century.
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Mr Magnier said he paid a €250,000 deposit for the site, lodged the full amount with his solicitors and paid for a tillage licence to plough the land on the basis that he had a “binding agreement” to purchase it.
Mr Thomson-Moore’s case is that no such sale took place and instead he plans to sell the estate to American-based businessman Maurice Regan for €22.5 million.
The case was due to get under way in March but was delayed to allow for further sharing of documents by the Thomson-Moore side.
The case has already generated more than 150,000 original documents. That figure came before a “gargantuan” computer search of the servers related to the Barne Estate holding company in Jersey.
The trial is set to last at least 13 days, with Mr Magnier taking the stand first. He is expected to give evidence for two days.
Mr Thomson-Moore and his wife Anna are expected to give evidence along with the estate agent John Stokes who was there for the trial.
The Thomson-Moores have stressed in the past that they want the trial concluded so they can move to Australia to get support for their son Teddy, who has cerebral palsy.
Court documents show Mr Magnier offered the Thomson-Moores €50,000 in cash in two envelopes on September 7th as he heard they were “strapped for cash”.
The money was returned to John Paul Magnier via Mr Stokes some days later.
Mr Regan is also expected to give evidence in the case. He is one of two shareholders in the Mercantile Group, which runs venues in Dublin such as Café en Seine and The George.
He owns a 550-acre (222-hectare) farm in Co Tipperary and has some 200 acres (80 hectares) elsewhere in the county.
For Richard Thomson-Moore, whose family has owned Barne Estate since 1654, the trial will determine whether he is bound to sell the property to Magnier, or whether he can proceed with a €22.25 million sale to Maurice Regan, the Kerry-born US-based construction tycoon behind the Mercantile Group of pubs.
Thomson-Moore’s lawyers have told the High Court on numerous occasions that they want to close a deal and move to Australia to access medical treatment for Teddy, their son.
