Expertise

Kieran Trant is a partner and a member of the US Business and Inward Investment Groups at Matheson.

Kieran practices corporate law and works with international companies on the establishment, expansion and operation of their businesses in Ireland. Kieran also advises clients on the complex legal and commercial issues that can arise on international transactions involving Irish subsidiaries of overseas companies, including advising on a broad range of corporate reorganisations.

As their Irish corporate counsel, Kieran also advises multinational companies on a broad range of corporate governance and general commercial issues, including directors' duties and compliance matters. In addition, he provides ongoing corporate advice and strategic counselling to clients, including advice in relation to distributions and complex cash repatriation strategies.

Kieran was previously seconded to Matheson’s Palo Alto and San Francisco offices and is a frequent visitor to the San Francisco Bay Area and other US locations where his clients are based.

Experience Highlights

Providing ongoing strategic advice as standing Irish corporate counsel to numerous international companies in the technology, life sciences and other industry sectors.
Advising international corporations on some of the largest and significant establishment and expansion projects in Ireland.
Advising numerous Fortune 100 US multinationals on the planning and implementation of group-wide international restructurings, including IP and other business reorganisations, pre- and post-acquisition integration transactions, consolidation and rationalisation projects, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, supply chain restructurings, spin-off, carve out and separation transactions, as well as cash and dividend repatriation strategies.
Managing significant multi-jurisdictional international reorganisations.

Accolades

Kieran Trant is "responsive, flexible in terms of arriving at tailored legal solutions, and has a strong commercial understanding".
European Legal 500 2020

Kieran Trant "does a wonderful job".
Chambers Europe 2019

Kieran Trant is "always available and provides excellent advice. I’m continuously impressed with his broad experience, and his ability to leverage that to get us the best possible outcome".
Chambers Europe 2019

Education

University College Cork (BCL)

University College Cork (LLM)

Law Society of Ireland, Solicitor

CJEU Decision on Unfair Terms

Jan 13, 2020, 12:10 PM

A recent decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has set limits on the ability of national courts to intervene to save a contract which contains unfair terms.

Title : CJEU Decision on Unfair Terms

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Insight Date : Jan 13, 2020, 12:10 PM

A recent decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has set limits on the ability of national courts to intervene to save a contract which contains unfair terms.

Article 6(1) of the Unfair Contract Terms Directive (93/13/EEC) (implemented in Ireland by EC (Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations) 1995), regulates contracts between consumers and businesses. Unfair terms in consumer contracts must not be binding on consumers but the contract will stand, if possible, without the unfair term. Generally, a court may not rewrite a contract by implying more reasonable terms into it. In Kásler and Káslerné Rábai (Case C-26/13), the ECJ had ruled that, where a consumer contract cannot continue in existence after an unfair term has been deleted, the national court could cure the invalidity of that term by substituting for it a “supplementary provision of national law” if to annul the contract would have unfavourable consequences for the consumer. The recent decision of Dziubak and another v Raiffeisen Bank International AG (Case C-260/18), established the limits of the Kásler exemption. The court ruled that gaps resulting from the removal of unfair terms cannot be filled by national law provisions of a general nature; only "supplementary provisions of national law" or terms agreed by the parties may be relied on to preserve a contract. The ECJ confirmed that courts can only save a contract in these circumstances if the consumer agrees to it. Even if the court considered that annulling the contract would have unfavourable consequences for the consumer, the wishes of that consumer prevail.