Abbey National v. McCann

The Northern Ireland Court of Appeal’s decision in Abbey National Plc v. McCann 1 concerned one man’s desperate attempt to save his business after a speculative property development he had embarked upon turned sour in the housing market recession at the turn of the last decade. Robert McCann had borrowed over £900,000 from the Abbey National Building Society (as it then was) to finance this development, but following a series of disasters a receiver was appointed and Mr McCann was left owing Abbey National Plc over £600,000 when the land was sold to enforce the lender’s security. Mr McCann had embarked upon a number of other business ventures in an attempt to raise money to stave off sale of the property development, the one with which this litigation was concerned being a sale of a product known as the “flexi-ring” to a Kuwaiti buyer. Mr McCann proposed to acquire sufficient flexi-rings to meet this order from the manufacturer, a company by the name of Greenland Products Ltd which was run by a Mr Blair. The latter required an advance payment of £40,000 before he would commence manufacture and Mr McCann proposed to provide this from an advance refund of VAT on