Complex financial affairs stall Dunne deal

The post-collapse tale of developer Seán Dunne and his wife, Gayle, has moved between withering and oddly fascinating.

The man who made so much money during the property bubble, and had such grandiose plans for making more, had to scramble fast when the bubble burst and the bankers who had issued the mountains of debt with which his affairs were associated, came knocking at his door.

In March of last year he sought to avoid debts of €700 million by making an application to the courts in Connecticut for bankruptcy. This didn’t stop Ulster Bank moving to have him declared a bankrupt in this jurisdiction.

Nama, owed huge amounts by Dunne, has alleged the Carlow developer has not been as forthcoming as he is obliged to be with the US court, something he denies.

Meanwhile Dunne’s wife, Gayle, is associated with property development ventures in the US and with a company there called Mountbrook. In July, the judge in the bankruptcy case, Alan Shiff, said there was at least a suspicion Dunne was setting up US companies the couple have said were owned by Ms Dunne. The developer told the court that, as part of a 2010 settlement, he made her a gift of €100 million after she took a case against him in Switzerland, where they were then resident. The case concerned a promise he said he made in 2005 to give her the money in return for “love and affection”.

The US court wants to get behind this Swiss settlement and other aspects of the couple’s seemingly complex financial arrangements. The bankruptcy trustee involved in the case, Rich Coan, has even aired a suspicion Dunne and his wife may in fact be divorced. (The Dunnes have said there is no substance to any such suspicion.)

There certainly seemed to be a less-than-perfect information flow between the two on Wednesday, when Sean Dunne’s lawyer made an application to the US court that his bankruptcy application be dismissed, while his wife’s lawyer was making an application associated with her effort to limit the extent to which Nama can investigate her personal affairs as part of his application.

But that is no doubt a lot for the couple to keep up with as they wrangle with a US bankruptcy application that has resulted in a level of intrusion into their affairs that they are now trying to oppose.