Lawyer gave Lynn second opinion

The London lawyer who provided legal advice to Michael Lynn last month has said that he met the Dublin-based solicitor to give him a "second opinion" on the various legal actions he was involved in, but did not expect to defend him in the cases. Simon Carswell, Finance Correspondent, reports.

Ray St John Murphy, a solicitor with the firm Merriman White in London, told The Irish Timesthat he met Mr Lynn last month with counsel in his offices, but that he did not anticipate coming on record in the cases taken against the solicitor by various financial institutions and the Law Society.

Mr Lynn has parted company with two legal teams and currently has no solicitor acting for him in the case taken against him by the Law Society.

Dublin solicitor Seán Sexton of PJ Walsh & Co, who stopped acting for Mr Lynn in the Law Society case last month, said yesterday that he would apply to the court on January 21st to come off record in the various cases taken by the financial institutions, which are owed multimillion euro sums by Mr Lynn.

Mr Murphy declined to reveal the advice that he gave to Mr Lynn due to client confidentiality. He said that Mr Lynn approached him through a contact in Dublin as he wanted independent advice from a solicitor outside Ireland. Mr Murphy contacted Mr Sexton last month to inform him of this.

"We were approached by this man for legal advice and professional courtesy dictated that we contact his solicitor on record to say he had sought legal advice from us, but that we had not received any instructions from him [ Mr Lynn] to come on record."

Mr Lynn failed to appear for two days of cross-examination in the Law Society's case last month. The President of the High Court, Mr Justice Richard Johnson, ordered that Mr Lynn be arrested.

Mr Lynn's whereabouts are unknown and the arrest order is still in place. The court heard last month that Mr Lynn was last seen in Merriman White's offices in London.

Mr Murphy said that he did not know where Mr Lynn was at present and had "no way of communicating with him".

Mr Murphy confirmed that former Irish Press solicitor Elio Malocco, who received a jail term for fraud in 1993, had worked for Merriman White in "an administrative capacity" with the approval of the Law Society in England for 18 months until about a year ago.

Mr Murphy was given permission by the High Court yesterday to represent the Cunningham Group, the building companies owned by Brian Cunningham, in its case against First Active.

Mr Cunningham has issued separate proceedings against Mr Lynn, who has acted as solicitor to the building group in the past.

Mr Murphy said that, if asked, he would not act for Mr Lynn, were there a conflict, given that he was acting for Cunningham in its case against First Active.