Examinership has been the subject of sustained recent media scrutiny following the dramatic increase in the numbers of companies seeking to avail of the court protection provided by this process. Examinership is unique to Ireland having been introduced by the Companies (Amendment) Act 1990. It is a formal court-supervised corporate recovery process. It is designed to enable insolvent but potentially viable companies to explore all opportunities to provide for their survival. An examiner is appointed (usually a practising accountant) to review a company’s affairs, consider its viability for the future and, if feasible, formulate proposals for the company’s financial survival. The examiner must also confirm the availability of sufficient cash resources to trade during the period of examinership, which is an increasingly difficult proposition.

Trade marks come in all manner of varieties and are a prevalent feature of a consumer’s everyday life. Whilst trade marks are typically thought of as logos or distinctive word marks, a recent appeal brought by toy manufacturing giant Lego Juris A/S (“Lego”) is testing the limits of what European trade mark law will allow as a registered trade mark.

Just over six years ago on 12th January, 2004 the Commercial Court was established with the objective of expediting business disputes with a value of in excess of one million euro. The benefits were seen almost immediately. Within fifteen months of its establishment, of the 77 cases which had been admitted to the list, 50 had been disposed of. The average time period from entry to the list, to the date of the final order being granted was nine weeks.