DUBLIN DOCKLANDS Development Authority (DDDA) faces the possibility of a multimillion euro compensation claim from developer Liam Carroll following a High Court judgment yesterday, according to a well-placed source.
Upholding a legal challenge by rival developer Seán Dunne, Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan quashed the DDDA's fast-track planning permission for a €200 million development project by Mr Carroll on the former Brooks Thomas site at North Wall Quay.
The judge's ruling renders the authority's approval for this scheme - intended as a new headquarters for Anglo Irish Bank - null and void. Work carried out on the site by Mr Carroll's company, North Quay Investments Ltd (NQI), now constitutes "unauthorised development".
Deals done by NQI with Anglo Irish as well as with AIB Capital Markets and solicitors O'Donnell Sweeney to pre-let other office space on the site were now "dead in the water" as they were also made on foot of the same planning approval granted by the DDDA, the source said.
Since the authority has no power to grant retrospective permission, or retention, it seems unlikely that the development work under way on the former Brooks Thomas site can be legitimised - unless the DDDA was successful in an appeal to the Supreme Court.
In her judgment, Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan found that there was "a direct relationship" between the decision to grant approval under section 25 of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority Act 1997 and the company ceding part of the site to the DDDA for public space.
The effect of a section 25 approval under the 1997 Act is to exempt a development from the normal planning process, under which a planning application would be made to a local authority and then be open to public objections and possibly appeals to An Bord Pleanála.
The judge said the nature of a confidential agreement reached in May 2007 between the DDDA and Mr Carroll's company before the exemption was issued in July 2007 gave rise to a "reasonable apprehension of bias" by the DDDA in reaching its decision.
The Treasury Holdings-led Spencer Dock consortium also took a High Court action contesting the DDDA's deal with Mr Carroll's company. Another casualty of yesterday's High Court judgment could be the DDDA's plans to create a high-rise quarter jutting out into the river Liffey along North Wall Quay, east of Spencer Dock. This scheme would have been facilitated by NQI's ceding of land, free of charge.
