TWO BROTHERS who secured judgment orders early this year for some €3 million against alleged “pyramid” investment scheme operator Breifne O’Brien have received no money from him, the Commercial Court heard yesterday.
On the application of Alan Doherty, for farmers Louis and Robert Dowley, Mr Justice Peter Kelly granted the brothers interim court orders registering charges against accounts and shares of Mr O’Brien.
The orders apply to accounts in National Irish Bank and Goodbody Stockbrokers and to shares in various companies including Independent News Media, Allied Irish Banks and CRH.
The court heard there was some €35,000 in the NIB accounts. A solicitor for the Dowleys said Mr O’Brien had referred in January last to some €213,396 assets held by him in a Goodbody nominee account, but that firm had last April provided an internal valuation of the defendants’s assets in the sum of €7,369 and stg£113.
The court heard the sheriff has seized assets of Mr O’Brien’s including an Aston Martin car and some small artworks, and applications may be made in relation to ownership of those.
Mr O’Brien’s wife, Fiona Nagle, has made claims over assets of her husband’s and had said proceedings were in being, the judge was told.
The judge returned the matter to July 13th, when he will hear an application by the Dowleys to make permanent the charging orders. Yesterday’s application was on an ex-parte basis (one side only represented). The brothers, who are farmers with addresses at Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary, are among several investors who secured judgment for sums totalling some €18 million against Mr O’Brien, Invergarry, Silchester Road, Glenageary, over allegedly operating a “pyramid” investment scheme over some 15 years, misappropriating millions from several investors to fund his personal lifestyle and business interests.
Mr Justice Kelly earlier this year referred papers in the case to Garda fraud detectives after saying they disclosed prima facie evidence relating to the commission of criminal offences.
The judge also ordered Mr O’Brien to repay some €18 million, plus interest and costs, given to him by friends who were the apparent victims of a “highly successful but not particularly sophisticated confidence trick”. He also made orders freezing Mr O’Brien’s accounts below €18 million.
An application by Ms Nagle to vary the freezing order so as to get some €4,000 weekly for household expenses was withdrawn after the judge refused to hear it in private.
In a statement of affairs provided to the court in earlier proceedings, Mr O’Brien had estimated his assets so far at some €36 million, but lawyers for investors said the actual figure might be closer to €20 million when charges and liabilities were taken into account.
Mr O’Brien’s listed assets included properties jointly owned with his wife, including their family home in Glenageary, an apartment at Vico Road, Dalkey; a house in Barbados, an apartment in Sandyford, Dublin and a share in apartments under construction in Dubai. Other assets include syndicated property investments, shares and artworks.
Proceedings were brought against Mr O’Brien in December last, just days after he told solicitor Brian Quigley, representing some investors, that he had been “living a lie” for up to 15 years in relation to investments made for others, and calculated his total liabilities as being up to €19 million.
He allegedly said it was easy to “pull suckers in when the economy was booming”, but that recent events made it impossible for him to continue his method of operation.
