Email led to IBRC deal with informants over Quinn assets

An email alleged to have been sent by a member of Sean Quinn's family within a week of three of the family being found guilty of contempt of court, helped convince the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) it should do a deal with two mysterious "informants".

The email, from the address nigel.smith@london.com, reads: “Sorry to inform you, due to developments last week, we will not be able to go ahead with any actions”.

The bank believes the “actions” are steps the family was taking, using lawyers and other agents around the world, to put assets worth hundreds of millions of euro beyond the bank’s reach, and the informants say the email address was used by members of the Quinn family.

The email was sent on July 4th, 2012. On June 26th, 2012 Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne found Mr Quinn; his son Sean junior; and his nephew Peter Darragh Quinn, guilty of contempt of court, for breaching orders to stop trying to put the assets beyond the bank's reach.

In an affidavit to the courts in London earlier this year, joint IBRC liquidator Kieran Wallace said the timing of the email was "significant" in that it appeared to refer to the court judgment of a week earlier.

Based on information from the informants, the IBRC sought court orders in London and the US to get access to email information from service provider companies.

Gagging orders applied to the orders until last week, so that the Quinn family would not find out what was happening.

The bank has been given details of substantial email traffic between email addresses supplied by the informants, and parties allegedly linked to former Quinn assets. The email traffic covers the period June 2012 to February 2014.

At the weekend, the Quinn family said the IBRC’s dealings with the informants “marks a new low in this litigation”.

“We are simply astonished that a state controlled entity would be a party to such ethically and legally questionable actions,” it said in a statement.

The family said allegations from the informants concerning an undeclared €300 million in gold, and €200 million in cash, “are absolute scurrilous lies and denied by the family in the strongest possible terms.”