Ben has worked, primarily as a financial officer, in the financial services industry for over 30 years. Working with Right-to-Homes, the non-profit organisation, Ben discovered that a significant number of Irish home mortgages had been mis-sold during the height of the Celtic Tiger.
Ben, having worked mainly overseas, was surprised that there was no one unconflicted public body responsible for Consumer Protection, a situation that is against European Commission recommendations and out of sync with both the US and UK financial services environments that Ireland models itself upon.
He subsequently formed a Claims Management Company to assist consumers in Ireland “Access Justice” when mis-sold a financial product. Ben has tremendous insight into how the industry operates, having worked for Merrill Lynch, a US Investment bank, for close to 20 years and more recently as Divisional Finance Officer at one of the leading Irish banks. His last role before retiring from the corporate world was at Kennedy Wilson, a property investment company.
Ben strongly believes that Family Home Loans should not have been sold beneficially to International Vulture Funds, who have no public interest or banking business in this State. The sales of family home loans was mandated by the ECB through changes in capital rules. The ECB is only concerned about banking supervision and strength of the banks they regulate. As a result of these changes to capital calculation, approximately 200,000 individuals (113,000 mortgages or 15% of all mortgages in the State) now find themselves in an unregulated world where there is no connection or link to the interest rates charged by the new owner versus the original regulated bank. Coupled with that, there are no interest rate options available to individuals, who originally signed up to a full service bank for one of the most important and largest purchases of their lives; a mortgage secured on the family home.
Ben is now committed full time to correcting this injustice by assisting individuals obtain compensation for the mis-selling of their mortgage and/or to obtain a fair deal on the interest rates being charged to the consumers in this unregulated world.
Barry specializes in the area of personal and corporate insolvency, particularly corporate recovery including examinerships, receiverships and liquidations. He has advised on some of the largest corporate restructuring cases in the state spanning business sectors such as real-estate development companies, construction, hospitality and retail.
His contributions shaped the Personal Insolvency Act of 2012, and the Companies (Rescue Process for Small and Micro Companies) (SCARP) Act 2021.
He also has extensive experience in commercial litigation and advises companies on matters relating to commercial and corporate transactions.
Barry is a regular contributor to national and local print and broadcast media. His articles have featured in publications such as The Irish Times, The Irish Independent, The Sunday Business Post and The Law Society Gazette.