Former Kerry Group chief executive Denis Brosnan has lost a High Court bid for summary judgment against his US-based former son-in-law.

The ruling by Judge Garrett Simons is the latest in a long-running and bitter transatlantic legal fight between Mr Brosnan and Geoff Cramer.

The judge noted that the Irish case came against the backdrop of a wider dispute in respect of the ownership of Futures Group Inc, formerly Talent Group Inc, a recruitment tech company which is the subject of ongoing litigation in North Carolina.

The US litigation concerns debt disputes linked to loans and investments that Mr Brosnan made to the American and his tech company, which are said to be worth over $3m.

Last month, Mr Brosnan's daughter Aimee successfully stopped parts of two "surreptitiously recorded" conversations with her ex-husband from being used as evidence in the US dispute.

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In the High Court in Dublin, Judge Simons was asked to rule on an application by the well-known Irish business figure for summary judgment against Mr Cramer in the order of more than €700,000.

Judge Simons said in his judgment that Futures Group Inc was incorporated in Delaware, USA, in 2005 and has its headquarters in North Carolina.

He said Mr Cramer was a US citizen, living in North Carolina, who was one of the founders of the company and continues to be a director and shareholder of the company.

Mr Brosnan is an Irish citizen, he continued, who had been the chairman of the board of Futures Group Inc from 2011 until his removal in March 2021.

Mr Brosnan's daughter Aimee Brosnan was the company secretary. Mr Cramer married her in 2008, but the pair separated in 2020, the judge said.

He added: "Divorce proceedings between the two are currently pending in the USA, but it appears that those proceedings have been stayed to await the outcome of other litigation taken as between the plaintiff [Mr Brosnan] and the defendant [Mr Cramer]."

The judge said Mr Brosnan had invested "significant amounts of money" in the company since 2006 and now claimed to have a majority shareholding.

The company needed a loan in 2007, and Mr Brosnan claimed that, as a longstanding and trusted client of AIB, he had offered to ask the bank whether it would be willing to provide a loan to the company.

He asserted that AIB said it would be unwilling to lend directly to a corporation based in the United States, but would be willing to lend to Mr Cramer personally, if Mr Brosnan acted as guarantor for the loans.

On that basis, AIB provided a series of rolling loan facilities to Mr Cramer over the period 2007 to 2018.

Mr Brosnan now contends that he repaid a principal sum of €425,000, together with interest, and is entitled to an indemnity from Mr Cramer.

The sum claimed by Mr Brosnan is €484,166 plus continuing interest. The interest claimed as of June 2021 was €238,201.

Judge Simons said Mr Cramer had opposed the application for summary judgment.

He said Mr Cramer claimed that it had been agreed by him and Mr Brosnan that any money paid by Mr Brosnan on foot of the various guarantees were to be debts of Futures Group, in respect of which both men were shareholders.

Mr Cramer said all parties were agreed that the money owing to AIB was a corporate debt and that it was not money personally owed by him.

Judge Simons said there were "significant factual disputes between the plaintiff [Mr Brosnan] and defendant [Mr Cramer] in their respective affidavits".

"Notwithstanding these factual disputes, the plaintiff invites the court to determine the proceedings conclusively on the basis of a summary hearing without oral evidence or cross-examination," he said.

Mr Brosnan had submitted that Mr Cramer's proposed defence "comprises no more than a 'bare assertion' that an oral agreement had been entered into, and criticised its lack of 'detail or specificity'", the judge said.

Judge Simons said he had concluded that Mr Cramer should be granted leave to defend the claim, and that the case should be sent for a full hearing.

He said a summary judgment could only be given in circumstances where it was clear a defendant had no defence.

The judge said that in this case, it was credible that Mr Brosnan may have expressly agreed or implicitly suggested that he would not seek repayment from Mr Cramer.

"The relevant circumstances include the close family relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant, and the blurring of the distinction between personal debt and the debt of the company," he stated.

Photo: Former Kerry Group chief executive Denis Brosnan. Photocall Ireland