No breach by bank of duty of care in loaning money for purchase of apartments in Corsica

Plaintiff (“the bank”) seeks judgment in the sum of €1,986,132.55, plus interest, against the defendants arising out of a loan facility provided by the bank to the defendants, as husband and wife, in April 2006 - purpose of that facility was to provide bridging finance to enable the defendants to purchase two blocks of apartments on the French island of Corsica, pending the execution of a contract for the sale of a 7 acre plot of land (“the 7 acres”) on the first named defendant’s farm (“the farm”), appurtenant to the defendants’ home at Ballinorig House, Ballinorig, Tralee, County Kerry, and the sale of a separate property owned by the first named defendant at Castlegregory, County Kerry – argued by defendants that the bank assumed, or ought to have assumed, a fiduciary duty or a duty of care to the defendants under which, in the particular circumstances of the case, the bank should not have entered into the relevant loan transaction with them - and second, that the loan agreement is invalid as between the bank and the second named defendant by operation of the relevant terms of the Consumer Credit Act 1995 (“the 1995 Act”), because the second named defendant must be considered a consumer in relation to that agreement for the purposes of the 1995 Act and did not receive the statutory protection to which she was entitled under that legislation – whether a fiduciary duty or a duty of care – court satisfied that the bank did not breach any duty of care that it owed to the defendants in acceding to their application for bridging finance or, consequently, in entering into a loan agreement with them – whether loan agreement is invalid as between the bank and the second named defendant by operation of the relevant terms of the 1995 Act, because the second named defendant must be considered a consumer in relation to that agreement for the purposes of that Act, yet did not receive the statutory protection to which she was entitled - in seeking and obtaining loan finance to acquire jointly with her husband two apartment blocks on the island of Corsica, the second named defendant was not concluding that contract for the purpose of satisfying her individual needs in terms of private consumption – defendants jointly were acquiring those foreign properties and investing in that development for profit - they were both engaging in business, and the 1995 Act has no application to either of them, since neither falls within the definition of consumer, properly construed, for the purposes of that Act in respect of the loan transaction at issue – judgment granted.