JR29 May 2023 10:10
Caravan ref 12 May 2023 16:50 post. I have been off the board for a while so have not had the time to respond. You asked about the signifcance of the JR. To understand the significance of the case you need to appreciate that with a JR you are asking the Court to exercise its Supervisory Jurisdiction over public bodies. In this instance a quashing order is being sought to quash the decision to grant IslandMagee Energy, a subsidiary of HARL, a marine license to develop seven caverns to initially store gas. Important Note it is only the Ministers decision to grant the license that is being challenged the underlying application would still survive. The effect of this is even if the JR was to succeed, with one exception, all the Minister needs to do is retake the decision inline with the Court's judgement.
As to the significance of the case if DAERA was to successfully defend the JR then IslandMagee Energy would have a, by my calculation, 40 year guaranteed source of income. In addition depending on what the final financing decision is it could affect the value of HARL. I say this because let us say that HARL exchanges 40% of the equity in IslandMagee Energy for the funding of the project that would give you a figure for the value of IslandMagee Energy. This is because if 40% of IslandMagee Energy is worth X then 100% is worth Y. It follows that HARL must be worth more than Y.
So in short the JR is significant as it would a) give a rough estimate of the value of HARL and b) provide a 40 year income stream.