Experience

Seán is a specialist in administrative and public law, with a deep understanding of public sector processes and corporate governance and legal risk management issues. He advises public bodies on their functions and compliance obligations under the public office and official languages legislation. He also acts for these bodies in the defence of judicial review proceedings and in investigations and enforcement actions.

As an adviser to several public authorities, including the Irish courts' rule-making authorities, Seán has worked on the preparation of primary and delegated legislation and on the development of procedural rules. Seán acts regularly in substantial domestic and international commercial disputes, both in litigation before the Irish courts and in arbitrations under various institutional rules. He is frequently involved in Commercial Court litigation, especially in the regulatory sphere.

He supports our Corporate Finance and Insurance groups in evidence preparation for applications concerning transactions designed to avail of court-supervised corporate processes.

He has been involved in a number of expert groups interested in legal and procedural reform, reviewing matters such as judicial review procedure, restatements, and the implementation of EU measures in Irish court practice. He has acted as Irish rapporteur for several EC Commission-led reviews on the operation of EU cross-border judicial co-operation measures.

Key highlights include advising:

  • Irish Bank Resolution Corporation and Irish Nationwide Building Society following its nationalisation in 2009 and following its transfer to Anglo Irish Bank in 2011, in novel civil claims for damages against former INBS directors.
  • MetLife Europe Limited in the court-supervised transfer of the European businesses of group companies in Italy, France, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus to MetLife Europe Limited.
  • United States Government in intervening in proceedings in Ireland involving the Data Protection Commissioner and Facebook concerning the legality under EU law of data transfer arrangements between the European Union and the US.
  • Vodafone Ireland Limited in the successful appeal of a regulatory decision to impose price caps on termination charges by reference to a benchmark of EU rates.
  • Zoomin.tv in an application to freeze shares in an Irish company suspected of exploiting its business knowledge.