Corporate financier Liam Kiely leaves IBI within months of joining

Dublin-based corporate financier Liam Kiely has left IBI Corporate Finance in recent weeks, months after joining the firm to head up its technology and healthcare division.

It is understood that IBI was unaware that Mr Kiely was facing trial on alleged fraud offences when he joined the firm last year.

A spokesman for the company confirmed to The Irish Times that Mr Kiely, also known as William, “is no longer an employee of IBI Corporate Finance”. He declined to comment further.

Mr Kiely joined IBI from Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland, where he had been a director of corporate finance for five years. He worked in Goodbody Corporate Finance and Société Générale earlier in his career. Mr Kiely did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. Efforts to contact a solicitor who has represented him were also unsuccessful.

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It emerged early last month that Mr Kiely (49) is fighting, under the name William Kiely, through the Court of Appeal a decision to send him for trial on alleged theft and fraud offences, dating between 2008 and 2013, that could total €1 million.

Invest

Mr Kiely was charged in 2019 at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court with 15 counts contrary to section 4 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act.

The alleged offences concern individuals who wanted to invest in property in the US, the Court of Appeal was told on December 6th.

The court was also told that the alleged offences took place between August 2008 and February 2013, and individual investors have claimed they lost amounts between €50,000 and €120,000 each.

The total amount allegedly defrauded ranged from €750,000 to €1 million.

Although gardaí began investigating complaints against Mr Kiely in 2012, he was not charged until July 2019.

Mr Kiely later sought a judicial review on the decision to bring criminal proceedings against him on the grounds that the length of time that it took to prosecute him for the alleged offences meant his right to a fair trial would be breached.

Rejected

In March 2021, however, Ms Justice Miriam O'Regan at the High Court rejected Mr Kiely's application to prohibit the legal proceedings against him. Mr Kiely is now appealing Ms Justice O'Regan's decision.

In a written submission to the Court of Appeal, lawyers for Mr Kiely said that the “delay in proceedings is of such a magnitude that he is entitled to prohibition because he has moved on with his life”. Mr Kiely has since “turned a corner” in his life, they said.

Michael O’Higgins SC, for the appellant, told the three-judge court that no more than 15 statements had been taken by gardaí from investors since the investigation into his client began almost 10 years ago.

On December 15th, the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court set a date in November 2023 for the start of the trial. As of Wednesday, the Court of Appeal had not issued a judgment on Mr Kiely’s bid to prevent the trial going ahead.