The five-week fraud trial of former financier Mr George Finbarr Ross over the collapse of his Gibraltar-based International Investments Ltd (IIL), which collapsed owing millions to depositors, will end this week.
Today, lawyers for both the prosecution and the defence will begin their final submissions, before Belfast Crown Court judge Mr Justice Gillen sums up to the jury, after which it will retire to consider its verdict.
Cork-born Mr Ross (54) denies a total of 38 charges including duping investors and false accounting. During a final day in the witness box yesterday, he maintained he knew nothing about any financial problems relating to IIL, which went into liquidation in 1984, nine years after the offshore bank first began trading. Mr Ross said that when the company did go into liquidation, he did not believe the company was insolvent.
"Is it your view that this company was insolvent in December 1983?" asked the trial judge.
"No, it is not. This is something I have wrestled with for a number of years. I do not believe at that stage it was," replied Mr Ross.
He also told the judge that he gave up his "beneficial ownership" of IIL in February 1984 to enable others - Mr Ronnie Vincent of the Isle of Man and a management committee of brokers - to reconstruct the company. This involved depositors being given the opportunity to become shareholders, backed up by an injection of £800,000 to the capital fund to be raised by the brokers, neither of which happened in the end.
But Mr Ross claimed he realised that when he handed over ownership of IIL, he was "giving it up completely". He further claimed that had he been told of any financial problems at that time, he would have prevented further investments being collected.
He said he did not know, however, what he would have done about the half-yearly statements of accounts being sent to investors. He claimed he knew nothing about any financial problems until he was told the company had a "temporary cashflow glitch" but that the reconstruction plans could have dealt with the matter.
Mr Ross maintained that from 1982-83 his main interest was in securing investments for IIL in the US, although he could not say how much of the company's money he took there. He rejected prosecution claims that he may have spent up to £1 million of IIL's funds on US investments, which were "all just one big puff", although he admitted the property investments paid no return to the company in the end.
Mr Ross also admitted that he had borrowed money from IIL, but refuted suggestions that he did so regularly to fund his own investments. When the company went into liquidation, Mr Ross said he "didn't owe International Investments one red cent".
