IBRC liquidator has offered to set aside €5m for any Quinn damages claim

The special liquidator of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation has, according to sources, offered to set aside €5 million to meet any claim for damages by the family of bankrupt businessman Seán Quinn should they successfully defend the bank’s action against them.

The family want $500 million (€384 million) to be lodged in court to meet any such award and say, given the liquidation of IBRC, unless $500 million is lodged, the court should lift injunctions granted against them and freezing orders on their accounts.

Their application for the orders to be lifted or a fortified undertaking for damages in the $500 million sum will be mentioned in the Commercial Court on Monday for the purpose of fixing a date for hearing.

Paul Gallagher SC, for IBRC, told Mr Justice Peter Kelly yesterday he expected the hearing would take at least two hours.

Martin Hayden SC, for the Quinns, said they would be filing a reply to the special liquidator’s affidavit.

When seeking injunctions in 2011 against the five Quinn children, three of their spouses – Niall McPartland, Stephen Kelly and Karen Woods – and Peter Darragh Quinn, a nephew of Seán Quinn, IBRC was required to give undertakings to pay them any damages should they successfully defend the bank’s claims that they had engaged in a scheme to strip assets from the family’s international property group and place them beyond the bank’s reach.

The Quinns claim the bank has no legitimate security over those assets.

Further orders

The bank was also required to give an undertaking for damages when it sought and secured further orders freezing the accounts of the Quinn defendants and appointing a receiver over their assets.

Following the special liquidation of IBRC, formerly Anglo Irish Bank, on February 7th last, the Quinns have questioned its ability to honour those undertakings.

They have brought an application seeking that either the court lift the orders or compel the bank to lodge up to $500 million in court pending the outcome of the case.

They have also sought orders requiring IBRC to account for its solvency and assets.

In response to that application, it is understood special liquidator Kieran Wallace will urge that the orders remain in place and will contend the Quinns have no defence to the bank’s claim because some of them had admitted there was a scheme to move assets beyond the bank’s reach.