By Business & Finance 
Businessman Bill Cullen is suing Ulster Bank and receivers Kavanagh Fennell in a High Court action for €120 million over the shutdown of his former business.
Businessman Bill Cullen is suing Ulster Bank and receivers Kavanagh Fennell in a High Court action for €120 million over the shutdown of his former business. In a suit filed in the High Court on Monday 19 February, Mr Cullen sought damages, compensation, and an order prohibiting the defendants from entering into any contract for sale of properties of Mr Cullen’s Glencullen Group held by the defendants. Mr Cullen is also suing for costs.
Mr Cullen’s business, Glencullen Group, consisted of the Bill Cullen Motor Group Renault dealerships. At the time of Ulster Bank appointing accountancy firm Kavanagh Fennell as receivers of the company’s assets, in 2012, the Group consisted of 30 companies, employing 200 staff.
Property grab
The premise of Mr Cullen’s High Court action echoes allegations his partner Jackie Lavin made under privilege before an Oireachtas finance committee on 23 January 2017 in relation to the bank’s handling of business customers who were put into the bank’s restructuring unit Global Restructuring Group Ireland (GRG). Ms Lavin told the committee she believed it was a “deliberate bringing down of businesses in a property grab strategy”.
With this suit, Mr Cullen alleges Ulster Bank and the now-defunct GRG deliberately targeted and unfairly shut down his business, which he claims was sustainable.
In 2016, Ulster Bank’s parent Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) announced a multimillion-euro compensation scheme for SME customers in Ireland and the UK who were treated unfairly by GRG.
Ms Lavin set up the Ulster Bank GRG Irish Business Action Group to represent 60 Irish companies that were put into GRG.
