A FILE on Anglo Irish Bank’s suspected failure to keep a register of directors’ loans was sent by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement to the Director of Public Prosecutions last month.
This is the third investigation file in the ODCE’s case on the bank to be sent to the DPP.
Director of Corporate Enforcement Paul Appleby said his office sent a file relating to Anglo’s suspected failure to keep the register dating back to the period before the bank’s nationalisation in 2009.
The DPP’s decision on the file will follow in due course, Mr Appleby said in a speech at the Irish Company Secretaries Group.
“Good progress continues to be made with our Anglo investigations, and we will be sending further papers to the DPP in the coming months,” he said.
Banks must maintain a register of loans and related transactions with directors and those connected to directors under Section 44 of the Companies Act, 1990.
The register, an internal record, must contain loans or other transactions between the bank and directors and similar transactions with any individuals connected with its directors where the loans were granted on favourable terms.
The ODCE is investigating loans provided to former Anglo chairman Seán FitzPatrick and other Anglo directors. Mr FitzPatrick resigned from the bank in December 2008 after it emerged he had concealed loans of up to €122 million over eight years.
The ODCE sent a file to the DPP in December 2010 regarding directors’ loans at Anglo, and another file in March 2011 on its investigation into Anglo’s loans to 10 of its customers to allow them buy shares in Anglo in July 2008.
A further file on Anglo’s financial statements in 2008 and prior to that year is expected to be sent to the DPP by the end of the year, at which point the ODCE expects its inquiries into Anglo to be complete, or substantially complete.
