Receiver told not to share Quinn bank papers

An application by the receiver appointed over personal assets of family members of bankrupt businessman Seán Quinn for permission to give information about some of their accounts to the former Anglo Irish Bank has been refused at the Commercial Court.

The receiver had obtained non-privileged information from various financial institutions about some accounts of some of the Quinns and wanted leave to hand that over to Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, formerly Anglo, for use in the bank’s court cross-examination of them next week.

Dispute

All five adult Quinn children and two of their spouses – Niall McPartland and Karen Woods – are to be cross-examined by lawyers for IBRC at the Commercial Court next Thursday and Friday about their affidavits disclosing assets and accounts.

IBRC has disputed claims by the Quinns they have provided full disclosure of their accounts and assets.

Ross Aylward, for the Quinns, argued before Mr Justice Peter Kelly yesterday the receiver was not entitled to hand over to IBRC the information at issue.

He said the receiver had consented, pending an appeal by his side to the Supreme Court, to a stay on the judge’s order last November directing the Quinns to hand over their laptops, mobile phones, email and other account passwords and other devices and documents to the receivers. To permit the receiver to hand over the information obtained to IBRC would amount to a serious breach of their rights to appeal and of that stay, he argued.

Andrew Fiztpatrick, for the receiver, argued the terms of the agreed stay did not extend to the documents from the financial institutions. Shane Murphy SC, for IBRC, supported the receiver’s application.

Mr Justice Kelly ruled the terms of the agreed stay meant he could not permit the receiver to hand over to IBRC the documents obtained from the financial institutions. The agreed stay covered the entire order made by him in November, including his order that the receiver could provide the bank with non-privileged information, he said.

If the receiver wished to pursue the application, he would have to apply to the Supreme Court as the consent stay was a matter before that court, he said. He also awarded costs of the application to the Quinns against the receiver.

Accounts frozen

The cross-examination of the Quinns arises from orders freezing their accounts, made on consent last July.

In an affidavit previously, Richard Woodhouse of IBRC said certain areas of alleged non-disclosure or inadequate disclosure were the focus of the bank’s application.

Those matters included documents relating to control of companies in the Quinn’s international property group, assets, bank accounts and documents relating to salaries from Russian IPG companies in 2011 and 2012, he outlined.