High Court: Security for costs ordered in Irish equestrian sector competition law dispute

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2026] IEHC 449
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  High Court
• Judge:
  Mr Justice Max Barrett

​Delivering judgment for the High Court, Mr Justice Max Barrett opined: “it is manifest that the greater risk of injustice in each set of proceedings arises if the plaintiff, notwithstanding its acknowledged impecuniosity, is permitted to prosecute the relevant proceedings without providing security for each of the defendants’ costs.”

Background

The plaintiff company, which operates a studbook for Irish warmblood horses, commenced two sets of competition law proceedings against a number of defendants.

In the first set of proceedings, the plaintiff alleged anti-competitive conduct and unlawful interference with economic interests as against the defendants, seeking declarations that certain directors and officers authorised those breaches of Irish and EU competition law and that the defendants engaged in tortious interference with the plaintiff’s economic and contractual relations.

In the second set of proceedings, which arose from a dispute within the equestrian sector regarding eligibility criteria for competitions organised by the first defendant and associated agricultural shows throughout the State, the plaintiff claimed that the rules and practices implemented restricted Irish warmblood horses and their associated studbooks. The plaintiff suggested that such conduct breached Irish and EU competition law and was discriminatory.

Each set of defendants brought applications seeking security for their costs as against the plaintiff pursuant to s.52 of the Companies Act 2014.

The High Court

Confirming Quinn Insurance Ltd v. PricewaterhouseCoopers [2021] 2 IR 70 as the leading authority in this area, Mr Justice Barrett considered that where a defendant has established a prima facie defence and the plaintiff is shown to be impecunious, a court will grant security for costs against a corporate plaintiff absent its demonstration of sufficient special circumstances warranting a departure from that course.

The court noted that even in the absence of a causal nexus between the plaintiff’s impecuniosity and the alleged wrongdoing on part of a defendant, a court retains the discretion to consider whether an order for security for costs would stifle the proceedings and must seek the path with the least risk of injustice.

The judge addressed the plaintiff’s alleged special circumstances, namely that its impecuniosity was a direct consequence of the defendants’ wrongdoing.

In this regard, the court observed having regard to Connaughton Road Construction Ltd v. Laing O’Rourke Ireland Ltd [2009] IEHC 7 that the plaintiff was obliged to establish four criteria: that a defendant had committed an actionable wrong; that such wrongdoing resulted in practical consequences; that those consequences occasioned recoverable, legally-defined losses; and that such losses were the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s inability to discharge the defendants’ costs.

Mr Justice Barrett found that the plaintiff’s assertion in this regard was merely speculative and lacked the independent expert economic evidence necessary to facilitate any reliable quantification and as such, the plaintiff failed to discharge the burden of proof.

In particular, the court was unimpressed by the plaintiff’s reliance upon internal projections and anecdotal evidence, deciding that this fell short of the evidentiary standard described in Protégé International Group (Cyprus) Ltd v Irish Distillers Ltd [2021] 1 IR 134.

As to whether the plaintiff’s claim was one engaging a matter of public interest, the court rejected the submission that the economic significance of the equestrian sector rendered the proceedings of exceptional public importance, remarking that the proceedings were “in essence, private proceedings, and the mere economic scale of the sport horse industry does not elevate a standard commercial dispute to a matter of significant public interest.”

Considering whether the claim would be stifled by the grant of the order sought, Mr Justice Barrett distinguished between situations where a claim is genuinely stifled and a situation where the plaintiff’s backers have made a deliberate commercial choice not to risk further costs.

The judge concluded that in the absence of evidence regarding the funding of the proceedings or as to how the claim would be stifled, the plaintiff’s refusal to provide security reflected a “commercial assessment of the merits of their claims, rather than a genuine inability to fund the litigation” and moved on to consider the defences to the claims.

Cognisant that the applications would not “turn into premature mini-trials”, the court considered that this limitation applied with force in the context of competition law proceedings which would inevitably depend upon detailed and complex expert economic evidence regarding inter alia the definition of the relevant market and the extent to which acts or omissions had an anti-competitive effect.

Mr Justice Barrett then considered the defences raised, which included that the “appropriation of the Studbook genetic market” was not a recognised category of abuse and lacked legal authority, denied any discrimination against Irish warmbloods, raised a limitation defence, and asserted that causation was not established where the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine held ultimate responsibility for the sector’s regulatory and governance framework.

In the circumstances, the judge was firmly of the view that all of the participating defendants had established prima facie defences to the plaintiff’s claims.

The court observed that “Even if there were a credible risk that one or both sets of proceedings would be stifled, that risk is in any event outweighed in each case by the potential for injustice should the proceedings continue in the absence of security.”

Assessing where the greater risk of injustice lay, Mr Justice Barrett considered inter alia that the natural defendants remained personally exposed to the burden of legal costs which the plaintiff could not discharge, whereas the plaintiff could utilise its status as a limited liability company to insulate itself from such financial liability.

Conclusion

Accordingly, the High Court indicated that it would grant an order for security for costs and that it would hear the parties further on the issue of quantum.

Studbook Development Ireland Limited v Horse Sport Ireland & Ors [2026] IEHC 449