Seán Dunne faces the possibility of being declared bankrupt in Ireland as well as in the United States after a Connecticut court allowed Ulster Bank to continue its Irish bankruptcy action against him, the Irish Times reported. In a major setback for the Co Carlow developer, the US bankruptcy court in Connecticut, where he now lives, approved an application by Ulster Bank - one of his biggest creditors which is owed more than €300 million - to continue with Irish legal proceedings to have him adjudicated a bankrupt in Ireland.

An Irish property developer, Eugene O’Neill, who came to prominence after he backed out of a deal to sell apartments in Dublin during the height of the property boom, has been bankrupted in Britain, following a petition lodged by a subsidiary of the Zurich insurance company, the Irish Times reported. The bankruptcy order was made against Mr O’Neill, who gave an address in Ealing in West London, and lately of Osbertown Lodge, Osbertown, Co Kildare, on the petition of Dunbar Assets Ireland, based in the Irish Financial Services Centre.

A total of 116 Irish companies collapsed in May, a 25 per cent fall compared with the same month last year. A total of 609 corporate insolvencies were recorded in the first five months of 2013, according to figures compiled by Kavanagh Fennell’s insolvencyjournal.ie website. This compares with 742 from January to May 2012, a fall of 18 per cent, the Irish Times reported. Leinster was the worst affected province, accounting for 68 per cent of corporate insolvencies in May, followed by Munster with 18 per cent, Connaught with 9 per cent and Ulster with 5 per cent.

The EU Commission has urged the Government to confront a re-emergence of lax lending standards in the banking system, warning in a new report that it sees fresh signs of bad practice in some lenders, the Irish Times reported. The commission expressed concern about the banks, which have received more than €60 billion in State aid, as it said the proceeds of the deal to scrap the Anglo Irish Bank promissory note scheme should be used to pay down debt.

The behaviour of liquidators is set to come under greater scrutiny from the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement as the number of company failures remains at a high level, the Irish Times reported. New ODCE director Ian Drennan said yesterday he would consider prosecutions in cases where liquidators failed to comply with their statutory reporting obligations. Liquidators of companies that are in insolvent liquidation are obliged under the Company Law Enforcement Act 2001 to report to the office on the company’s demise.

The number of people with Irish addresses applying for bankruptcy in either England or Wales has risen significantly, according to figures from Britain’s Insolvency Service, the Irish Times reported. Last year, there were 75 bankruptcy cases involving debtors who gave an address in the Republic, compared with 28 in 2011 and just 15 in 2010. The figures from the Insolvency Service, however, do not necessarily indicate the number of debtors who have relocated from Ireland to the UK specifically to obtain a bankruptcy order.

Ireland's new insolvency laws will help distressed home-loan borrowers, but also help Irish taxpayers regain some of the huge sums the country has pumped into its banks during the country's deep financial crisis, Irish central bank head Patrick Honohan said Thursday, Dow Jones Newswires reported. Dublin last month detailed a new so-called Insolvency Service of Ireland agency, the centerpiece of new debt-solution laws that the government says will help distressed borrowers strike deals with their banks.

Ireland’s 850 hotels have aggregate debts of €6.7 billion and about 300 of them are in financial difficulty. These are the key points of a report on the health of the sector jointly commissioned by AIB and the Irish Hotels Federation, the Irish Times reported. The report also found that 54 per cent of hotels increased their turnover in 2012, while two-thirds of the 111 respondents expect tourism to improve here within the next three years.

The rising number of bad loans – both mortgage loans and those to businesses – and the reconfiguring of the banks so that they can lend profitably to support growth are the two main challenges to the Irish economy, according to the Central Bank’s second annual Macro-Financial Review, the Irish Times reported. The report, which assesses the strengths and weaknesses of all areas of the Irish financial system, states that the greatest single risk to the domestic economy is “the health of banking system and its ability to support the real economy”.

Central to the Government’s plan to deal with the legacy of personal debt is the creation of a new brand of insolvency professional, due to be registered from next summer. Depending on who you talk to, the Personal Insolvency Practitioner (PIP) will be jumping on the greatest legal gravy train for years, or embarking on a journey that will be far more hassle than it’s worth, the Irish Times reported. What’s certain, according to Lorcan O’Connor, director of the Insolvency Service of Ireland (ISI), is that “if we don’t get the practitioner bit right the system won’t work”.