High Court to hear bid to set aside arbitrator’s award in New Beginning dispute

The High Court is to hear an application to set aside an arbitrator’s award against a debt advisory group that worked to provide social and affordable housing with funding from international capital.

New Beginning Management Services Ltd (NBMS) and New Beginning Development Services Ltd (NBDS) have been involved in providing, through partnership with global investors, funding for social and affordable homes leased to local authorities and approved housing bodies.

The New Beginning firms provided advisory and asset management services relating to social housing stock owned by a fund headed by a collective asset management vehicle called the Platform ICAV.

The Platform ICAV acts as an umbrella fund for the Irish Social Housing (ISH) Fund I, as well as several other funds.

Investment advice for the Platform ICAV came from London-based RoundShield Partners, which was subsequently replaced by RS ISH Advisors Ltd (RS ISH).

In 2024, the New Beginning firms brought High Court proceedings against the Platform ICAV and all those associated companies and funds seeking to restrain the termination of an agreement between them.

It was claimed a decision had been made that RoundShield investors would exit the ISH fund and that RoundShield had conspired to bring about the termination of that agreement.

New Beginning claimed it would result in more than halving the commercial return due to NBMS “and of destroying NBMS as a going concern with the loss of jobs”.

The respondents strongly denied the claims.

The matter went to arbitration, which Platform ICAV says resulted in a “decisive victory” for it.

New Beginning then applied to the High Court to have the arbitration award set aside.

The arbitration process took 22 months to complete.

In the meantime, Ross Maguire, chief executive of New Beginning, who is also a senior counsel and had sworn the affidavit for his company in the 2024 action, had brought his own personal claim against Platform ICAV, claiming the new proceedings were essentially the same issues as those in the arbitration.

Jack Logan, solicitor with Arthur Cox for the respondents, said in an affidavit in relation to the New Beginning application to set aside the arbitration decision, that last April a stay was placed by the High Court on Maguire’s personal proceedings pending the determination of the arbitration.

Notices for termination of the agreement with New Beginning took effect on September 23rd last.

Logan said the substance of the New Beginning firms’ set-aside application arose from an assertion that during the conduct of the arbitration they were “denied ... their choice of advocate” by virtue of a decision of the arbitrator handed down in March 2026.

Consequently, adequate attention could not be and was not given to issues in the arbitration, it was claimed.

Logan said he considered that all of those issues were addressed comprehensively in the arbitration and in the arbitrator’s partial final award.

The application to set aside was an attempt to avoid the effects of the outcome of the arbitration, Logan said.

It was also being done to “delay the inevitable”, which is the lawful termination of the agreement with New Beginning as well as the determination of the respondents’ application for the costs of the arbitration, he said.

In an application this week to High Court president Judge David Barniville, Michael McDowell, counsel for New Beginning, said he was looking for an early hearing of the set aside application.

The judge said that because he would be “uncomfortable” dealing with this, as he knew some of the parties personally, he had spoken to Judge Oisín Quinn, who will be able to hear the matter next month.

He adjourned the case and gave directions in relation to legal submissions in advance of the hearing.