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The event was organised by the Dialog group, cofounded by the US tech billionaire Peter Thiel. Photograph: Andrew White\/The New York Times <\/p>\nA private conference due to take place next month at Powerscourt Hotel in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, was cancelled when its general manager received abusive phone calls and threats of organised protests and blockades, it has been claimed in Commercial Court proceedings. <\/p>\n
The event was organised by the Dialog group, cofounded by the US tech billionaire Peter Thiel, and was due to be attended by 200 senior figures from the world of politics, technology and defence.<\/p>\n
In proceedings brought by Stonebrick LLC, trading as Dialog, it is claimed that the Powerscourt operators wrongfully cancelled the event, which was due to take place between August 12th and 17th.<\/p>\n
Stonebrick is suing Sugarloaf Ventures, trading as the Powerscourt Hotel and the companies that own the 1,000-acre estate, Powerscourt Estates Ltd and Scalaheen Ltd.<\/p>\n
Stonebrick says, in its statement of claim, that Thiel is cofounder of Dialog and a founder of the data company Palantir, although he had no involvement in organising the Powerscourt event.<\/p>\n
The event was organised by the Dialog group, cofounded by the US tech billionaire Peter Thiel. Photograph: Andrew White\/The New York Times <\/p>\n
It is seeking declarations including that the hotel operators acted in breach of contract and that the estate owners wrongfully induced the hotel operators to act in breach of contract.<\/p>\n
Stonebrick, which says it has about 1,000 members including chief executives, government officials and other senior leaders, holds three large retreats per year, of which Dialog Global is one.<\/p>\n
The event is a material source of its annual revenue and it expects to face a refund liability as a result of the cancellation of some $2.2 million (\u20ac1.9 million). The hotel general manager cancelled the event on July 3rd.<\/p>\n
Paul Gardiner, counsel for the hotel, told the court on Monday his client says this was \u201ca force majeure cancellation\u201d.<\/p>\n
Stonebrick, which says it was the victim of a cyberattack in June in which information about the event was leaked to the media, denies it was force majeure.<\/p>\n
The contract did not entitle the defendants to cancel by reason of political pressure, reputational concern, media coverage, protest activity, or pressure about staffing concerns or staff being unwilling to attend work for the event, it said. The event could have lawfully proceeded, it is claimed.<\/p>\n
On June 16th, the hotel general manager informed Stonebrick of the calls, emails and threats of protests. That morning, according to the manager, 15 protesters with placards and chanting slogans had gathered in the hotel lobby and entrance for about 30 minutes.<\/p>\n
The manager met a local Garda inspector who stated the event could be held safely but would require a substantial policing and security response, Stonebrick says. <\/p>\n
The manager expressed concerns that it would mean the closure of the golf course at Powerscourt and its gardens.<\/p>\n
Stonebrick had indicated it intended to work with the US embassy, the Garda and private security providers to ensure the event was safe.<\/p>\n
Martin Hayden, counsel for Stonebrick, applied for entry of the case to the fast-track commercial list on Monday with neither consent nor objection from the defendants. <\/p>\n
However, Judge Eileen Roberts told Hayden she would not admit it to the list until counsel provides an affidavit detailing the amount of the alleged loss involved, although she accepted this was something of a \u201cmoving target\u201d. Hayden said 33 attendees had already cancelled. <\/p>\n
The judge said she would put the case into one of the court vacation sittings on September 2nd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A private conference due to take place next month at Powerscourt Hotel in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, was cancelled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,240962,61,60],"class_list":["post-571268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-garda-intercept-bomb-near-irish-border-pa2026","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}