Man to be sentenced next month for leaking Nama information

Former Nama employee Enda Farrell will be sentenced on May 12th in connection with leaking potentiallly commercially sensitive information from the State agency to third parties in 2012.

Mr Farrell (40) has pleaded guilty to eight charges of passing confidential Nama information, relating to hundreds of properties, between May and July 2012, to named individuals in investment company QED Equity Ltd and in asset managers Canaccord Genuity.

The tranches covered properties linked to major developers, Nama’s hotel portfolio and Nama properties in Germany.

Mr Farrell, of La Reine, Avenue Louise in Brussels, Belgium and formerly of Dunboyne, Co Meath, appeared on bail at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on Thursday.

After hearing evidence Judge Karen O’Connor said she wanted time to consider the appropriate sentence and adjourned the case to May 12th. Mr Farrell was remanded on continuing bail.

Intentional disclosure

Earlier this month he pleaded guilty to intentionally disclosing to Stewart Doyle of QED Equity Ltd by email on May 17th, 2012 Nama confidential information relating to the Cosgrave Group when he did not have the authority or was obliged to do so.

He pleaded guilty today to seven other offences of unlawfully disclosing information, in breach of two sections of the 2009 Nama Act, between May and July 2012. He faced 13 charges in total and the court heard evidence relating to 12 of them.

Mr Farrell had access to huge amounts of highly confidential information which had a potential commercial value, Detective Garda Gareth Lynch from the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation told the court.

The information included lists of properties that had been taken into Nama and valuations placed on them in November 2009. The properties included those linked to developer Paddy McKillen, the O’Flynn Group Tiger Developments, Harcourt Doherty Group, and the Cosgrave Development Group.

One tranche of information sent by Mr Farrell included valuations of 100s of hotels owned by different developers.

No profit, no loss

Mr Farrell, a married father of three, did not profit from the disclosures and Nama was not at a loss as a result of them, Detective Garda Lynch said.

The Garda added that Mr Farrell had co-operated fully with the investigation and his decision to plead guilty to the charges had avoided an lengthy full trial of evidence.

This was in spite of there being uncertainty as to whether he could have been extradited from Belgium on these charges.

Michael Bowman SC, defending, said the offences emerged after his client left Nama and was in alternative employment. He later lost this job and has been left practically destitute by civil proceedings involving Nama.

He has compromised his future employment prospects by actions based on poor judgement, counsel said.