A family finance saga worthy of a Tarantino script

BACKGROUND:The Quinns' position is that their efforts to put assets beyond IBRC's reach led to those assets falling into other hands

THE CONTINUING battle between Seán Quinn’s family and the bank that once was Anglo includes elements that might sit well in a Quentin Tarantino movie.

On July 20th last, Seán Quinn jnr swore an affidavit for the High Court, as did his father, and his cousin, Peter Darragh Quinn.

They had been found guilty of contempt of court weeks earlier and the affidavits outlined what they had been doing to try to undo their efforts to put assets beyond the reach of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, which incorporates Anglo.

Included in Quinn jnr’s affidavit were details of payments made to an Irish company, Cranre Property Services Ltd, which is owned by a Swedish trust set up for the benefit of Quinn snr’s grandchildren.

He told how, in January of this year, he and his cousin met Larissa Yanez Puga, who looked after a shopping centre in Kiev owned by the Quinn family. Also at the meeting were a lawyer, Mr Gurtovy, and two others, Mr Orlov and Mr Zaitsev, whom, he said, he was told were “security”.

Somebody secretly filmed the meeting and the video was subsequently given to the Mail on Sunday.

Quinn said the meeting involved a discussion of payments due to Cranre. In all, the company was owed $500,000. Previous payments had been made by money transfer to Cranre’s AIB account in Blanchardstown, but this time Puga and the Russian men with her offered a payment of $100,000 in cash. “We expressed our difficulty in receiving payment in this form,” said Quinn jnr.

He went on to recount how, after the meeting, the two Irishmen, Puga, and one of her associates drove to a bank on the way to the airport to see if an account could be opened for the money. However, the bank was closed. Quinn is silent as to what happened the cash.

A second issue under discussion had to do with Peter Quinn and a pending court hearing. Puga, Peter Quinn said in his affidavit, wanted him to lie to the Kiev courts, a position put to him “in an intimidating manner”.

Peter Quinn said he would not travel back to Ukraine. “I am not prepared to travel in person to the Ukraine to give evidence against Ms Puga [and others] as I fear that, if I should do so, my personal safety would be in jeopardy.”

The Quinn family’s position is that its attempts to put certain assets beyond the reach of IBRC had led to these assets falling into the control of those they engaged to try to outwit the bank.

Quinn jnr said that, in April 2011, the Moscow law firm Attorneys Business (AB) had been engaged to help keep the assets from being seized by the bank. An upfront payment of $1 million was sought by the firm, and it was arranged that the money would be forwarded by Ms Puga from the accounts of the Kiev company, Univermag, which she ran for the Quinns.

“AB maintains that a significant portion of that payment was ultimately retained by Ms Puga for her benefit, but I do not have any evidence to this effect,” said Peter Quinn in his affidavit.

On July 5th, Quinn jnr and his brother-in-law, Stephen Kelly, met Artur Zafarov of AB in its Moscow offices “to secure the unwinding of the various transactions that AB had set in train on our behalf in 2011”.

Zafarov was told that the Quinns had been ordered by the High Court to unwind the transactions. “Mr Zafarov’s response was calm and forceful. He informed us that, although the position in which we now found ourselves was regretful . . . his firm did not act for the Quinn family and the Quinn family were not and never had been clients of his firm.”

A similar attitude prevailed the next day at another meeting, said Quinn jnr. On July 7th, he and Kelly travelled to Dubai to meetings with Michael Waechter and Willem Smit of Senat. A request to Waechter that a certain share transfer be reversed met with the response that he was not in a position to do so.

The two men then travelled back to Moscow to hold another fruitless meeting with Zafarov.

“I sanctioned the initial strategy last year to frustrate [the bank],” said Quinn snr in his affidavit. “I take full responsibility for the consequences of that strategy”, which are that the family is not able to do as the court has ordered.

IBRC has told the court it believes the Quinns are still in control of the assets and Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne has agreed.

She is due to hold another hearing on the contempt issue on October 19th next.