Irish egg producer faces demand to repay €8m bank loan

An Irish egg distributor who is to be extradited to the UK on charges of alleged involvement in a multi-million pound egg fraud is also facing a demand for the immediate repayment of bank loans totalling almost €8m (£7.2m).

A judge in the Irish Republic last month authorised Bank of Ireland to take court action against Pearse Piggott and his wife Noelle for repayment of the loans, said to have been taken out over three years ago. Mr Piggott, who runs an egg distribution company, Pearse Piggott & Sons, in Gort, County Galway, is currently on bail awaiting extradition to Britain.

According to a warrant presented to the Irish High Court by DEFRA earlier this year, he is alleged to have conspired with Keith Owen, of Heart of England Eggs, Worcestershire, in a fraud in which 36m eggs were said to have been falsely passed off to British retailers as being free range or organic. It is alleged that production numbers were altered and suppliers’ names falsified in a fraud that was said to have netted a profit of £1.43m.

The repayment claim now goes to the Irish Commercial Court.