Shelley Horan BL

I have over 18 years experience representing companies and public bodies in a variety of commercial, corporate, regulatory/public law and civil matters and in doing so regularly appear for parties in various fora including the Superior Courts, Fitness to Practice Inquiries, Central Bank ASP Inquiries, Tribunals of Inquiry, Arbitrations & Mediations and before Company Inspectorates. I am a CEDR Accredited Mediator since 2012.

Examples of recent work includes:

• Acting in a wide range of commercial disputes in the Commercial List / Chancery List of the High Court (including for breach of contract, regulatory actions, mis-selling of financial products, intellectual property matters, etc).
• Acting in civil High Court competition proceedings in the Competition List of the High Court, as well as applications regarding evidence gathering processes by the CCPC after a dawn raid.
• Representing key protagonists in the High Court appointed inspection into Independent News & Media Plc (INM plc) under the Companies Act, 2014 for c. 6 years.
• Acting in a wide range of injunction applications (including springboard and Mareva injunctions), as well as recently defending Science Foundation Ireland in the injunction application taken by Philip Nolan arising from his dismissal.
• Acting in intellectual property disputes, such as acting for Recorded Artists Actors Performers Ltd in its two major Commercial Court copyright actions against Phonographic Performance (Ireland) Ltd.
• Insolvency matters, including being involved in multiple high-profile examinerships and liquidations for petitioners and creditors, as well as defending receivers, representing the Corporate Enforcement Authority and Liquidators in various Companies Act court applications, including to disqualify / restrict directors, representing a significant investor in Custom House Capital in order to have their monies unfrozen.
• Arbitrations, such as acting for an Irish software company in a lengthy and complex multi-million euro intellectual property, data protection and breach of contract dispute before an ICC Arbitral Tribunal heard remotely which involved, inter alia, the cross-examination of a dozen witnesses from Finland through an interpreter.
• Acting for the Central Bank of Ireland in its major administrative sanctioning (ASP) inquiries (e.g., in re David Guinane, Philip Smith and Stanley Purcell) and in regulatory applications such as High Court applications to confirm prohibition notices under the Fitness and Probity regime against individuals and the provision of advice on a range of other matters.
• Data protection law, including representing Meta in High Court proceedings against the Data Protection Commission (DPC) and the EDPB and in various DPC inquiries where multi-million Euro fines are at stake; defending Twitter in an injunction taken by the DPC regarding its processes for training its AI product, Grok, and defending civil cases where damages for data protection breaches are sought, as well as advising bodies -including State agencies- about data protection issues and information exchanges (including with foreign agencies/OLAF).
• Acting for the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) including in Commercial Court regulatory applications seeking, inter alia, a financial penalty.
• Advising Comisún Na Meán, Ireland’s new commission for regulating broadcasters and online media.
• Defamation actions: acting in High Court defamation proceedings including the following ongoing proceedings, e.g., defending Conor McGregor in defamation proceedings taken against him by Artem Lobov (see e.g, [2022] IEHC 724), defamation proceedings taken against my client Georgetown University Press by a lawyer, defamation proceedings taken against my client LinkedIn and defamation proceedings taken by members of Donegal County Council against a councillor.
• Acting and advising in professional regulatory matters including representing the Medical Council, the LSRA, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, CORU and the NMBI in their fitness to practice inquiries, as well as acting in urgent High Court suspension applications / confirmation applications before the President of the High Court.
• Representing the Garda Commissioner and over 30 members of An Garda Síochána (“AGS”) in the Disclosures Tribunal.
• Judicial reviews, including representing various Government Departments/the State itself, local authorities, AGS, the Revenue Commissioners and the Road Safety Authority, among others.
• Advising multiple State Bodies in public procurement matters.
• Personal injury and medical negligence actions, including representing religious orders in multiple civil historical sex abuse cases and defending sexual assault cases in the Jury List of the High Court.
• Acting for the Criminal Assets Bureau in civil High Court proceedings involving the freezing of monies which are the proceeds of complex financial crimes, as well as third parties in asset freezing issues, such as Airbnb and Ulster Bank.
• Representing the Revenue Commissioners in tax appeals, cases stated to the High Court, judicial reviews and applications to the High Court for orders to produce information (i.e., by way of exchanges of information requests from other jurisdictions). I have also been instructed by the Collector General in debt collection matters, including in High Court applications for Mareva injunctions. I also act for taxpayers in tax appeals and cases stated to the High Court
• Other recent work includes acting for large corporations in Freedom of Information appeals, the provision of advices to GSOC during a major investigation (I regularly advise on investigations and have also acted as the investigator in workplace disputes and represent Ironman in investigations/a Coroner Inquest), advising and representing the HSE in commercial matters, representing the Commission for Aviation in commercial bond cases , acting for a significant Irish charity in civil High Court proceedings against senior managers involved in a multi-million euro fraud, defending mis-selling cases and acting for investors in FSPO matters.
• Successfully defending Sean FitzPatrick (former CEO and Chairman of Anglo Irish Bank plc) in two lengthy trials (one a 9 month trial) for alleged misleading statements made to the Bank’s auditors over a significant period regarding over €100 million of director’s loans (2014-2017).

I am the author of the legal text, Corporate Crime (Bloomsbury Professional, 2011) (a second edition is due to be published next year) and the author of two chapters on the EU Regulation of hedge funds in Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (Kluwer, 2012) (one of which pertained to white-collar crime and hedge funds). I have also had several legal articles published.

• I created, directed and lectured an Advanced Diploma in the Honorable Society of the King’s Inns.
• I previously held the role of Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law in Trinity College Dublin (an LL.M Module).
• I have presented on a large range of topics (in Ireland, Liechtenstein and London) on areas such as financial services law, commercial litigation, injunctions, company law and the law of directors, competition law, corporate insolvency, the proceeds of crime, the law of funds, expert witnesses, civil fraud claims and corporate and financial crime. I have been invited to and have addressed bodies such as the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Attorney General’s Office, the Criminal Assets Bureau (including to its specialised T.A.C.T.I.C. course each year), ComReg, GSOC, the Environmental Protection Agency, various solicitors firms (including Arthur Cox, McCann FitzGerald, Matheson, Mason Hayes & Curran, William Fry and Beale & Company), the Irish Centre for European Law, the Society of Young Solicitors, Restructuring & Insolvency Ireland, the Institute of Directors, the International Association of Defence Counsel, Free Legal Aid Centres, various third-level institutions (such as Trinity College Dublin, King’s Inns, Maynooth University, NUI Galway and the University of Liechtenstein), the Bar of Ireland, the Financial Services Bar Association, the Professional and Disciplinary Bar Association, the Department of Justice and Law Reform, the Dublin Solicitors Bar Association, the Local Authority Solicitors Bar Association, the Irish Women Lawyers Association, the British and Irish Commercial Bar Association, Transparency International and the Association for Criminal Justice Research and Development, among others.

• I served as a Director on the Board of Projects Arts Centre –this was a voluntary role for this charity.
• I was nominated in 2016 by the Charities Regulator to act as a trustee of the board of the beleaguered charity Console although the appointment became redundant once the company was placed in liquidation.
• I was co-opted by the Chairman of the Bar of Ireland to the Bar Council for 2012-2013, having been placed on several committees (such as external relations) pertaining to the Legal Services Regulation Bill (as it then was). I was subsequently appointed the Bar of Ireland’s Women at the Bar Committee and am currently co-opted to the Public Affairs Committee.
• I am a Mentor to young female barristers as part of the Bar of Ireland’s Kyle-Deverell Mentoring for Women Programme.

• I was appointed as a member of the Disciplinary Committee for the Certified Public Accountants (CPA) (since 2012) and was regularly asked to chair the Committee.
• Since 2018, I am the Chair of the CPA’s Appeals Tribunal.
• I was a member of the Company Law Review Group nominated by the Bar Council of Ireland (2018-2022).
• I am a member of the Women’s White Collar Crime Defence Association (Irish chapter).
• Between 2012-2014. I served as the External Examiner for the Institute of Bankers/UCD on Financial Crime Prevention Course (part of which pertained to anti-money laundering compliance).