Liam McCaffrey launches High Court action against Facebook

Seen & Heard: former Quinn group vs social media giant; Connect Ireland vs IDA; O’Gorman’s Kilkenny row

The owner of the former Quinn manufacturing group has taken legal proceedings against Facebook in a bid to unmask people who have made malicious and allegedly defamatory comments about the company and its management, the Sunday Times reported.

Quinn Industrial Holdings, which is run by former Quinn group chief executive Liam McCaffrey, launched the High Court action after negative comments were posted recently on the social media site.

Clune’s job creations

Connect Ireland, the job-creation scheme backed by Kilkenny businessman Terry Clune, is understood to be seeking more than €7 million from the IDA as a dispute between the two sides escalates, according to the Sunday Business Post.

It said the pair have been at odds over the number of jobs created by the scheme, which pays a fee to Irish diaspora who bring investment to the country.

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Kilkenny Group row

Greg O'Gorman, the former marketing director of the Kilkenny Group, who is at the centre of a bitter family row over the business, has requested that "if necessary" a receiver be appointed to the well-known retail chain in order to realise and distribute the assets of one of Ireland's best known retail chains, the Sunday Independent reported.

It also emerged in court filings that a family partnership – comprised of Greg O’Gorman and his siblings Michelle, Melissa and Christopher, with their mother, Marian O’Gorman, as a managing partner – agreed in 2015 to prime the Kilkenny Group for sale within the next five to 10 years if it doubled its profits within that time frame.

Aryzta review

Swiss-Irish food group Aryzta could be broken up in the future, according to a report in the Sunday Independent. It cited Société Générale analyst Warren Ackerman, who said the company had too much spare capacity in the US.

“In our view, a full review of its cost base is needed and we suspect US factory closures will be required,” he said.

RBS losses

The gulf between the two taxpayer-supported British lenders will widen this week when Lloyds posts surging profits while RBS (the owner of Ulster Bank) slumps to its ninth straight annual loss, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

On Wednesday, Lloyds is forecast to post profits of £4.4 billion while RBS is expected to reveal on Friday that its net losses more than trebled last year to £6.8 billion, bringing its total losses since the crash to almost £60 billion.