Nephew admits Quinns tried to put $130m out of Anglo's reach

A NEPHEW of the former billionaire Seán Quinn has said debts of $130 million (€97 million) due to a Quinn family company were signed over to a Ukrainian man last year to stop Anglo Irish Bank getting the money.

At the time, the family had never met the man, Yaroslav Gurnyak, who the court has heard was a former railway and building site worker.

Peter Darragh Quinn (34), an accountant and former senior footballer with the Fermanagh GAA team, was for a number of years the manager of an international property portfolio owned by the five adult children of Seán Quinn.

Yesterday he entered the witness box in a case where Anglo, now the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), is seeking to have him, his uncle, Seán Quinn, and his cousin, Seán Quinn jnr, committed to prison for contempt of court. All three deny the charge.

Peter Quinn told the court he was not prepared to lose his freedom for the Quinn family or for a job. “That wouldn’t be sensible,” he told Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne.

The court has heard that a Quinn family company called Demesne Investments, with an address in Co Fermanagh, had contractual rights to debts of $175 million from companies in Russia and Ukraine that, in turn, owned valuable properties there.

However, earlier this year the debts were assigned onwards, for nominal value. IBRC is alleging the debts were assigned after High Court orders in June 2011 forbidding any such moves. However, the defendants say they took no such action after the High Court order.

Peter Quinn told Brian O’Moore SC, for the family, that debts of $130 million were assigned to Mr Gurnyak in April 2011 to “stop Anglo getting access” to the money.

He thought that putting the money beyond Anglo’s reach might force the bank to negotiate with the family and that “if Anglo couldn’t get its hands on the money, then sense would prevail”.

The court has heard that, in late 2010, Peter Quinn got legal advice in Moscow on how to challenge Anglo’s claim to the family’s international properties. The bank says the properties are collateral against debts of €2.88 billion owed by the family. The family is contesting the debts.