Hotel investor claims he couldn’t stay in his own suite, court hears

Gerard Lane, of Penthouse 3B, Essensa, 21st Drive, BCG, Manila, claims his business partner, Denis Connolly, who resides in Tinakilly House Hotel, refused to allow him access to his suite.

He claims he had never before had an issue with using his suite and he had expected to stay there “as per usual”.

Mr Lane said he was not informed in advance about the wedding event in July 2022 and the whole tone of the exchange that day was “very aggressive”.

This was, he said, the start of the breakdown of a partnership they had formed after they first met through a friend in 2013.

The partnership bought Tinakilly and another hotel in Cadiz, Spain, where Mr Connolly said he also had an owner’s suite for his sole use whenever he chose to stay there.

Mr Lane seeks a number of orders and declarations from the court, including the dissolution of the partnership.

Yesterday, Mr Justice Michael ­Twomey agreed, on the application from Declan McGrath SC, for Mr Lane, to admit the proceedings to the fast-track commercial list.

Counsel said while there was no appearance for Mr Connolly, there had been without-prejudice communications with him and he was consenting to entry of the case to the Commercial Court.

In an affidavit, Mr Lane said the Tinakilly hotel was bought for €1.05m in 2013 from a receiver by the partnership and the agreement was that he owned 49pc and Mr Connolly the other 51pc.

In 2017, he said they bought the Finca Monasterio boutique hotel in Cadiz for €2.5m, with him owning 51pc and Mr Connolly 49pc. Both the Irish and Spanish hotels are popular wedding venues and in total worth over €12m.

Mr Lane said he contributed an estimated €1.8m to Tinakilly and in excess of €1.5m to Finca Monasterio.

Despite these significant contributions, he said, he has not received any payments from the partnership to date.

After the disagreement upon his arrival in Tinakilly in July 2022, he said he decided to “let the tension between us cool down” with the passage of time.

But in May 2023, he learnt the defendant had lodged a planning permission for Tinakilly from a company called Greenhill Development (BC) Ltd as the legal owner of the hotel.

This caused him significant concern and there followed a number of emails from Mr Lane to Mr Connolly, who in August 2023 did not address concerns about the partnership but only addressed the July 2022 disagreement, he said.

In the email, Mr Connolly accused Mr Lane of being “wrong in your assumptions” about the exclusive use of the hotel for weddings and “wrong in your disgusting and bullying treatment of me and my fellow co-workers”.

Mr Lane said he travelled to Ireland last November, when he met the auditor for Tinakilly, who agreed to act as an intermediary. The auditor later said Mr Connolly wanted to deal with the impasse on an amicable basis, and came up with proposals for the buying out of the other party’s interests in both hotels.

Mr Lane’s lawyers then corresponded with Mr Connolly and also sought financial information regarding the hotels, which he said was not forthcoming.

Mr Lane’s lawyers issued a formal notice of dissolution of the partnership on May 31 this year, which prompted Mr Connolly’s reply denying the existence of the partnership. Mr Justice Twomey urged the parties to consider mediation at this early stage.