US fund seeks to quiz media in Ryanair legal action
Airline and O’Leary were sued by American pension fund in 2018
LAWYERS for a US pension fund suing Ryanair and its chief executive Michael O’Leary in New York want to question news outlets and journalists, including this correspondent, in relation to the legal action.
Ryanair and Mr O’Leary are resisting the move through their lawyers.
The Alabama pension fund for fire officers and police officers sued Ryanair and Mr O’Leary in 2018, claiming they had made false and misleading statements to shareholders regarding employment issues at the airline.
In late 2017, Ryanair dramatically said it would recognise trade unions.
The pension fund alleged that increased costs as a result
of unionisation at Ryanair, as well as lower profits, wiped out “millions” in shareholder value. The claims have been strenuously rejected by Ryanair and Mr O’Leary.
A New York court last year said many of the complaints made against the airline and its boss by the pension fund had no actionable basis.
Now the pension fund wants permission from the US court to request judicial assistance from the Irish courts to interview, under oath, this correspondent. It is in relation to a 2018 article in which Mr O’Leary said that recognising trade unions “was not one of my best days in Ryanair, but it was inevitable at some point in time”.
In a draft letter to the Irish High Court that will be sent if the US court sanctions the move, lawyers for the pension fund state that testimony and documents “produced by the Irish Independent are intended for use at trial and are relevant and important to the claims and defences asserted in this action”.
The proposed letter adds that “it is requested that the High Court of Ireland direct the witness to appear before a competent authority, authorised by the Irish courts, and to compel the testimony of John Mulligan or the Irish Independent representative most knowledgeable about the… article”.
It wants information regarding recordings, notes and other material.
Lawyers for the US pension fund insist that the journalists it wants to interview “possess material information that is highly relevant to the claims at issue in this action”.
The lawyers also want permission to ask the UK courts for judicial assistance to question Financial Times journalists Arthur Beesley and Josh Spero, John Collingridge of the UK edition of The Sunday Times, and Conor Humphries of Reuters.
Lawyers for Ryanair are trying to persuade the New York court to rebuff the requests.
“While defendants are not generally opposed to lead plaintiffs using letters of request to obtain discovery in this action, the Letter Motion should be denied in its current form because it impermissibly seeks non-party discovery on claims this court has dismissed or on matters this court has already held are not properly the subject of party discovery in this action,” they have argued in court filings.
The pension fund’s lawyers also want permission to seek to question representatives of recruitment firm Crewlink, which provides cabin crew to Ryanair, as well as Brookfield, a company that provides it with pilots.