Paddy McKillen

McKillen launched his first major legal action to stop NAMA when it attempted to seize his loans and assets during Ireland's banking crisis. In February 2011 he won a landmark Supreme Court Case in Ireland and blocked NAMA from seizing some €3 billion of loans associated with companies he had a shareholding in. McKillen lined up Nobel Prize winning economist Professor Joseph Stigliz as an expert witness in the case which was unusually heard before all seven Irish Supreme Court judges. Professor Stiglitz stated that McKillen's international portfolio of prime property assets was run to pension fund standards and that his profitable and fully performing loans, were exactly what the Irish economy needed to recover and stimulate growth and jobs, and that it would be detrimental to Mr McKillen's businesses and the Irish economy to transfer them to NAMA.

The seven Irish Supreme Court judges unanimously ruled in McKillen's favour essentially because the decision to acquire the loans was made before NAMA had been formally established. They also found that McKillen has a right to be heard before acquisition of his loans. McKillen's Supreme Court victory marked the beginning of a series of high-profile international legal battles taken to protect his businesses from corporate raids that came about because of Ireland's banking crisis. His Irish Supreme Court case Dellway vs NAMA is recognised as a landmark legal decision and is used internationally as an example of how Governments cannot override citizens’ rights during national emergencies.

The British Barclay Brothers launched a hostile takeover attempt on the Maybourne Hotel group in January 2011. McKillen fought back and spent over £50 million in legal fees on one of the largest commercial legal actions taken in London Courts to prevent the brothers from seizing the hotels. The battle caught the attention of world media as McKillen fought to protect his business. In 2015, the Barclay Brothers accepted defeat and sold their entire shareholding in the hotels to the Qataris.

McKillen then sold his shares to the Qataris but retained a substantial stake in the hotels. He ran the hotels and carried out a major redevelopment of Claridges and the expansion of hotel group to include Maybourne Riviera in France and Maybourne Beverly Hills. In April 2022, the Qataris removed McKillen from the board of Maybourne Hotels as they argued over his stake in the business which could be worth more than €1.2 billion to McKillen .[15][16][17][18]

Paddy McKillen owns and has been developing Chateau La Coste, a biodynamic vineyard and international destination for art, architecture and natural beauty in Provence, for the past 15 years.[19] It was named by Newsweek as one of the Top 100 Destinations to ‘Visit in the World’. In 2017 McKillen opened a luxury hotel, Villa La Coste, on the 600-acre estate.

In November 2022, Tablet Hotels at the Michelin Guide featured Chateau La Coste with the headline, “A lot of people love art. Few people love it, or can afford to love it, as much as Patrick McKillen, who turned an old French vineyard into a striking hotel with a collection of art and architecture to rival the world’s best.”[20]

In June 2015, Calvin Klein bought a house redeveloped by McKillen's son Dean, on the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles for $25 million (purchased $6 million in 2012 and extensively refurbished by Dean at a cost of $12,000,000).[21]

McKillen is continuing to expand his global business. In 2021 he opened Shinmonzen, A Tadao Ando designed Japanese Inn which he developed in Gion, Kyoto.[22]