Ireland’s Director of Public Prosecutions has removed the final obstacle delaying a commercial court action by the family of bankrupt businessman and property developer Sean Quinn denying liability for some €2.34bn (£1.8bn) in loans given by the former Anglo Irish Bank (AIB) to a number of Quinn companies.
The action by Patricia Quinn and her five children had been shelved at the DPP’s request to allow the department to press ahead with criminal proceedings against three former Anglo executives. That case has now ended with the 13 April, next year, set for the Quinn’s civil action.
One of the bank bosses who stood trial was former AIB chairman Seán FitzPatrick who was found not guilty last month of charges that he illegally loaned tens of millions of euros to prop up the share price of the bank, nearly bankrupting the Irish state.
The Quinn case, scheduled for an eight-month hearing, is against the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) and its special liquidator, Kieran Wallace. The IBRC had previously secured court orders joining Sean Quinn and two former senior Quinn Group executives, Dara O’Reilly and Liam McCaffrey as “notice parties”.
Members of the Quinn family filed their joint action against the Central Bank, in its capacity as financial regulator, the Department of Finance, and several former Anglo Irish Bank executives over the making of the loans. It’s known their case is based largely on some 250 hours of phone conversation transcripts dating from 2007 between the bank, the department, and the Central Bank concerning matters arising from Sean Quinn’s acquisition of a 29.4 per cent stake in the Allied Irish Bank.
In their proceedings, the Quinns deny liability for some €2.3bn of total loans of about €2.88bn (£2.3bn) which they claim were given illegally by the bank to prop up its share price. They also allege that loans of about €54m (£43.7m) were made to the Quinn-owned International Property Group companies of which, they claim, only €9.2m (£7.4m) relates to companies involved in the conspiracy case. The remainder of €445m (£360m), they say, is not relevant to any action or claim.
In a separate action, the Central Bank alleges a conspiracy by the Quinn defendants and others to strip assets valued at up to €455m (£368m) in the International Property Group. That case was initiated in June, 2011, but was also stayed at the request of the DPP due to the criminal proceedings involving the former Anglo executives.
So far the conspiracy action has involved more than 40 pre-trial applications — including the granting of freezing orders on the accounts of several family members and contempt proceedings resulting in the jailing of Sean Quinn and his son Sean Junior — and so far notched up an estimated €15m (£12m) in costs. The case has also involved applications, from both sides, in other courts around the world, the most notable in Russia and Cyprus.
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