State and IBRC no worse off after declaration of bankruptcy

ANALYSIS: HE WAS once considered a multi-billionaire but his submission to a Belfast court yesterday portrayed SeánQuinn as a virtual pauper.

Quinn’s application to the court came as a complete surprise but its effect may be minimal from the point of view of the exchequer.

Insolvency practitioners in Belfast yesterday pointed to the fact that the application was taken under the name John, rather than Seán, Quinn, though sources close to the family noted that his name on his birth certificate and on his passport is John Ignatius Quinn.

Whether this contributed to Quinn’s success in having the application heard and ruled on before his former bank got wind of it is a matter for speculation.

However, some hours later, sources close to the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), formerly Anglo, were saying the move didn’t alter the situation much in relation to its efforts to salvage something from the Anglo loans to the Quinn Group.

The fact that Quinn, in his statement after the case, referred to his being from, and working in, Co Fermanagh, and that the IBRC, in its short statement, said it was “examining the validity of this application for bankruptcy” in the light of Quinn’s residency in Co Cavan and “extensive business interests and liabilities within the State”, seemed to indicate where the next skirmish in this war could take place – a battle over Quinn’s right to make an application in Northern Ireland.

However, Quinn's solicitor, John Gordon, said that in his view the IBRC had no locus standiin the case and would not be able to contest Quinn's right to file for bankruptcy there.

The big question is the effect, if any, of the bankruptcy on the IBRC’s ongoing efforts to get as much as it can back from Anglo’s disastrous loans to the formerly mighty Quinn.

The IBRC, in essence Quinn’s sole creditor, should not in theory be disadvantaged. As a result of the bankruptcy declaration, all Quinn’s assets are now held by the official receiver of Northern Ireland, and creditors can make their applications to him.

If the statement of affairs submitted by Quinn yesterday is anything to go by, Quinn owns nothing and Anglo/IBRC is trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip. Bankruptcy does not change anything about that.

Quinn and his family once had assets that included the Quinn Group’s manufacturing and insurance businesses, and its extensive property holdings. The bank, by way of share pledges and personal guarantees, and other forms of security, believes it has a right to these assets as its loans have not been repaid.

The insurance and manufacturing businesses have already been seized but are of little value relative to the massive amounts due to the State (by way of the IBRC).

The properties, many of them in places such as Russia and India, are the IBRC’s best bet for getting back at least some of the money. They are believed to be worth hundreds of millions of euro.

The Quinn family is involved in a huge, multijurisdictional battle with the State agency over these assets. In an affidavit to a court in Nicosia, Cyprus, in October, IBRC executive Richard Woodhouse set out aspects of this battle.

The family was moving ownership of assets, the courts was told. It also heard claims the assets were in fact held in trust for the Quinn children by companies that Anglo thought owned them when it was issuing loans for which it received, in return, the company shares as security.

Woodhouse said the family was involved in a “conspiracy” aimed at putting the assets beyond the bank’s reach but the family argued that it initiated the moves that are being described by Anglo as a conspiracy, as an effort to protect family property assets from the improper attempts of the bank to seize them.

In her affidavit to the Cypriot court, Aoife Quinn said the family disputed the legality of the charges the bank claims it has on the companies that own the property. The family’s position is that the loans the Quinn Group received from Anglo were “tainted with illegality and were for an illegal purpose”, and because of this they cannot be held liable for the money.

This argument has not yet been ruled on by any court.

The reference to illegality relates to the loans issued by Anglo after it found out in 2007 that Seán Quinn had built up a secret 28 per cent shareholding in Anglo using high-risk contracts for difference, a position that the bank then set about unwinding, using its own money, in an effort to protect its own share price.

The surprising aspect of all of this to date has been the extent to which the family are to the fore, and the paterfamilias has remained offstage.

Unless someone somewhere can argue and show that Seán Quinn should in fact be linked to assets over and above those outlined in his statement of claim, then it would seem the State has not lost anything by Quinn’s unexpected move.

If matters run smoothly for him, Quinn will be out of his bankruptcy within a year. And back in business?