A lawyer has lost a bid to strike out a claim for damages against him.

The high court ruled in 2017 that advocate Jerry Carter had been negligent for failing to properly represent Jonathan and Jamie Irving at a winding-up hearing seven years earlier.

In 2018, the Irvings were disqualified from acting as company directors and were ordered to pay costs of up to £155,000 to the regulator.

Mr Carter and his law firm Carters Advocates then applied to strike out the damages claim against them which is due to be heard this autumn.

They argued it would be an abuse of process and the Irvings should not be allowed to profit from their own wrongdoing.

But Deemster Andrew Corlett said there was nothing unfair in the father and son being able to continue with their case against Mr Carter and his practice.

wrongdoing

Dismissing the application, he said: ’I consider that this is not an appropriate case for the application of the doctrine that a claimant should not be permitted to profit from its wrongdoing.’

In his 2017 judgment, Deemster Corlett ruled that Street Heritage’s advocate Mr Carter had been negligent by not turning up in time for a winding-up hearing which took place in February 2012.

Deemster Corlett concluded it would have been ’very probable’ that the court would have agreed to adjourn the case, giving the company time to attempt to put together a rescue package.

The Irvings have always argued that Street Heritage was solvent at the time of the winding up hearing.

But the disqualification hearing in September 2018 found that SHL was insolvent and had been for at least two years prior to the winding-up order.