DAVID DRUMM, the former chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank, transferred more than €500,000 into accounts held by his wife Lorraine in late 2008.
The transfers of €370,000 and €180,000 into his wife’s savings accounts at Allied Irish Bank took place in December 2008, the month he resigned from the bank.
This was the main revelation to emerge at the latest hearing in Boston in connection with Mr Drumm’s bankruptcy application in the US.
Mr Drumm filed for bankruptcy in Boston last October after Anglo Irish Bank rejected his final proposals to settle a legal action taken by the bank in the High Court in Dublin in relation to loans of €8.5 million.
“Was it your customary practice to transfer funds to Lorraine’s account?” asked Kathleen Dwyer, the attorney and court-appointed trustee who questioned Mr Drumm for two hours at yesterday’s hearing. “It was something we did in 2008,” Mr Drumm replied.
It also emerged at yesterday’s hearing that in December 2008 Mr Drumm received his last full monthly paycheck of €92,000 from Anglo, as well as a bonus of €372,000, which he said covered the previous three years. He received a final paycheck of €86,000 in January 2009.
Participants in yesterday’s hearing sat behind stacks of manilla file folders, which they pored over, identifying various accounts only by the last three digits.
It was a dizzying mish-mash of dollars and euros, deposits and transfers, joint accounts, sole accounts, savings and brokerage accounts.
A half dozen journalists attended the session in the hot, stuffy, 21st floor boardroom. At one particularly soporific juncture, when two journalists had walked out, Ms Dwyer peered down the long wooden table. “Wake up down there!” she exhorted the remaining journalists.
Ms Dwyer has scheduled another hearing – the fourth so far – for February 14th. When she has finished cross-examining Mr Drumm in the attempt to assess and liquidate his assets, it will be the turn of his creditors.