LAST UPDATE | 25 Mar

THE BITTER DISPUTE between the three co-founders of the Web Summit tech conference has been adjourned until tomorrow after a High Court judge urged the parties to resolve their differences rather than suffer the “real and human” cost of spending months in litigation.

Mr Justice Michael Twomey quoted the French philosopher Voltaire, saying: “I was never ruined, but twice – once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one.”

He urged the three parties not to focus on the “rights and wrongs” of the history of their business disputes but to focus on resolution.

He said mediation was “a thousand times more preferable than going into litigation” and warned that the three months for which the case is scheduled could mean a judgment from him in the winter which might not satisfy any of them.

This, he said, may lead to appeals and possibly thereafter to Supreme Court appeals, which could take up to three years from now to deliver a final judgment.

Justice Twomey said that there would be a personal cost to the proceedings and that should matters be litigated to their fullest it would be three months of their lives they will “not get back, never get back” and that there would be a “real and human” cost to all involved.

Progress

After the court rose for 10 minutes after 11am this morning, Bernard Dunleavy SC, for Cosgrave, asked the judge to break until 12.55 pm for parties to consider the remarks.

When the court resumed, Dunleavy said there had been “a positive level of engagement” and that there had been “progress” in the case.

Dunleavy said that if matters were to be adjourned so that all parties would be facilitated by the remainder of the afternoon then this would be “extremely helpful”

Justice Twomey then adjourned the case until 11am tomorrow morning.

Web Summit co-founder Daire Hickey was due to give evidence at the High Court this morning in his action against majority shareholder Paddy Cosgrave, in the second week of the trial.

Before proceedings began, Justice Twomey told the parties to work “every day” on a resolution and commended them for entering into mediation efforts, which broke down, ahead of the trial.

Evidence in five separate actions, brought variously by Cosgrave, Hickey and David Kelly, was due to begin being heard at the High Court this morning. The proceedings, which opened last Tuesday, are scheduled to run for nine weeks.

Suing

Cosgrave is suing Kelly, who owns 12% of the shares in Web Summit, for alleged breaches of his fiduciary duties as a director of the company. Majority shareholder Cosgrave is, in turn, being sued by Kelly and Daire Hickey, who holds 7% of the shares in Web Summit, for alleged shareholder oppression and breaches of a profit-sharing agreement.

Last week, when lawyers for all parties made their opening statements, Dunleavy said that proceedings brought by Kelly and Hickey are an attempt to avoid a discount on the potential sale of their shares in the tech conference firm.

Dunleavy, who was responding to opening statements delivered in the proceedings by Hickey and Kelly’s counsel, said Web Summit is “big enough and valuable enough” to make the two minority shareholders “millionaires many times over in the morning” if they sold their stakes.

“This is a case driven by greed,” he said, adding: “Mr Hickey and Mr Kelly invested nothing in this business. They risked nothing for this business. They both, in their separate ways, betrayed this business,” counsel said. “They want this court to craft for them a windfall which they do not deserve.”

After the court rose for 10 minutes after 11am this morning, Dunleavy asked the judge to break until 12.55pm for parties to consider the remarks.