New defendants added to French film figure’s action alleging multi-million fraud

The High Court has allowed well-known French film figure Dany Boon to add several additional entities as defendants to proceedings in which he claims to be the victim of a multi-million euro fraud by a man who purported to be an Irish lord.

Mr Boon claims the additional parties, located in the West Indies, United States, Monaco and north Co Dublin, are all linked to and controlled by the person he claims is behind the alleged fraud.

Lawyers representing Daniel (Dany) Boon secured a High Court freezing order in July preventing Thierry Fialek-Birles, also known as Terry Birles and Thierry Waterford-Mandeville, and several corporate entities he is alleged to either control or be the ultimate beneficial owner of, from reducing their assets below a value of €6 million.

Mr Boon also secured various disclosure orders requiring the defendants to provide him with various documentation in an attempt to ascertain where his money has gone.

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The new defendants in the action are the US-registered American Sail & Motor Navigation Inc; Amalgamated Plantations Company Ltd, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands; Asia Monaco Investments Ltd, with an address in Lusk Co Dublin; Asia Monaco, registered in Monaco; and Sail & Motor Navigation Company Limited, in Antigua and Barbuda.

They join South Sea Merchant’s Mariners Ltd Partnership (SSMM), Hibernian Petroleum Limited Partnership, United Irish Estates Limited and Hibernian Yachts Company Limited, which are all Irish registered entities, and the Samoa-registered United Far East Oriental Holdings (Samoa) Ltd as corporate defendants in the action.

Links to defendant

When the matter returned before Mr Justice Brian O’Moore on Tuesday, Rossa Fanning SC, for Mr Boon, said that arising out of further investigations his client was seeking to add five additional defendants, all of which are allegedly linked to Mr Birles.

Counsel said that in addition to adding those entities, his client was seeking orders including freezing orders and disclosure orders against them. He said an attempt was apparently being made by Mr Birles to set up a trust in favour of the defendant in the Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis.

Mr Fanning said his side was recently made aware of a plan to take a Cork-based sailing boat, linked to Mr Birles, which was the subject of the freezing order. That vessel, counsel said, had been moved by Mr Boon’s solicitors and has had security placed on it.

Counsel said it had initially appeared that the defendants would defend the action. However, as the defendants’ solicitors had come off record, it appeared the proceedings would not be contested.

His client was therefore going to seek judgment against all of the defendants in the High Court. This, counsel said, would give Mr Boon enforceable options against the defendants’ assets in other jurisdictions.

Mr Justice O’Moore made various orders allowing Mr Boon’s lawyers to serve notice of the proceedings on the new foreign-based defendants.

The judge further granted temporary freezing orders against the new defendants, in similar terms to the orders made against the other defendants. He adjourned the matter to a date later this month.

Mr Boon claims that he is the victim of “a systemic and elaborate fraud with an international dimension”. He alleges that last year he advanced monies to entities linked to Mr Birles, whom it is alleged had represented himself to be an “Irish Lord from an ancient family” and an expert lawyer in maritime law.

Tax-free interest

Mr Boon claims that, based on Mr Birles advice, he invested €4.5 million of his money in July of last year through SSMM in a scheme with the Irish Central Bank which he alleges Mr Birles told him paid 3.25 per cent annual interest that was tax-free. He subsequently discovered that no such scheme exists and, despite making several requests, the funds have not been returned to him.

He also claims that he advanced a further €2.2 million, through SSMM, to cover the costs of running the yacht, but he does not yet know how much of that sum has been misappropriated.

SSMM is the entity to which Mr Boon claims he paid €6.7 million for various purposes, but he alleges it was used by Mr Birles to defraud him.

Mr Birles has claimed that he sold his interest in that company to an Italian family with the surname ‘Rossi’. This is disputed and Mr Boon’s lawyers say the Rossi family does not exist.

It is claimed Mr Birles, a French citizen aged in his 30s, committed the fraud by using a network of companies he had appeared to have established in Ireland and other jurisdictions and is somebody who goes by various aliases He brought proceedings after Mr Birles was investigated by a firm hired by the plaintiff, after his efforts to have his monies returned to him by SSMM were unsuccessful and after he received a tip-off about Mr Birles’s activities.