Goodman was unaware of offshore company in land deal, says adviser

Mahon tribunal: A tax adviser to Mr Larry Goodman has said he advised the beef baron to "keep away" from offshore companies when structuring a land deal involving Mr Liam Lawlor.

Mr Seán Mooney said his advice was to use an Irish company to buy 55 acres of land at Coolamber, near Lucan, as there was no tax advantage in using an offshore company. He told Mr Goodman's finance director, Mr Brian Britton, to "keep it Irish".

The tribunal has heard that solicitor Mr John Caldwell used an Isle of Man company, Navona Ltd, fronted by an Irish company, Southfield Properties, to acquire the land, using £350,000 advanced by Mr Goodman to Mr Lawlor.

Yesterday, Mr Mooney said his client was totally unaware of the involvement of Mr Caldwell and businessman Mr Jim Kennedy in the ownership of the land. He said he never heard of the kind of offshore structure devised by Mr Caldwell.

Under Irish tax law, profits derived from Irish land were liable to tax here, regardless of where the company owning the land was incorporated. Mr Des O'Neill SC, for the tribunal, pointed out that such profits would have to be declared first before they were taxed.

Mr Mooney said Irish taxpayers were obliged to list the capital profits they made on offshore companies on their tax forms. He would have advised Mr Goodman to keep away from offshore schemes as they offered no financial advantage.

He described the Coolamber deal as "a very minor transaction". Over 90 per cent of Mr Goodman's income came from exports and he had access to tens of millions of retained profits at any time. Beside this, the debt of £158,000 from the deal amounted to less than 0.1 per cent of the £187 million then owed by Iraq to Mr Goodman.

Mr Mooney expressed "surprise" at the terms of the letter of comfort Mr Goodman supplied to the Bank of Nova Scotia in 1987, when Southfield took out a £350,000 loan to repay the beef baron's loan to Mr Lawlor.

This letter stated that Mr Goodman was the sole owner of Southfield, although this company was actually fronting for Navona, with which Mr Goodman had no involvement.

Mr Mooney said it was not the practice of Goodman International to misrepresent a position. It was a pre-condition for lending that there couldn't be a change of ownership during the loan period.

In 1991, Mr Goodman asked him to meet Mr Lawlor and Mr Caldwell to sort out problems with the deal. Asked to account for a note saying Mr Goodman wanted no publicity, Mr Mooney said the beef tribunal was just starting and "the last thing Larry Goodman wanted was litigation involving development land at Lucan and involving Liam Lawlor".

Earlier, Mr Britton said Mr Lawlor and Mr Caldwell had been "ungracious and ungrateful" in the way they had treated Mr Goodman in the Coolamber deal. He said the land had been sold for up to £3 million but neither he nor Mr Goodman had been informed of this.

Mr Lawlor had told him documents were in place to protect Mr Goodman's interest in the transaction and he assumed Mr Caldwell was aware of this. Mr Britton said bad debts were not tolerated in the Goodman Group.