'Impropriety' of sending of Communicorp letter rejected

A solicitor acting for Mr Denis O'Brien's Communicorp has rejected implications of impropriety associated with his sending of a letter in June 1995 on the GSM licence competition, which the tribunal claimed contained "confidential" information.

Mr Owen O'Connell of William Fry Solicitors drew the tribunal's attention to a number of press reports up to and on June 20th, 1995, when the letter was written, from which all the statements in it "could fairly have been inferred".

The letter, to solicitors acting for Advent, the investment company which had initially provided backing to Esat's bid for the licence, referred to the European Commission's objection to the auction concept in the competition.

It added: "Accordingly, the terms of the application are to be revised with either no upfront payment required or a maximum cap placed thereon. It is expected that the timetable will be extended by about two months."

Mr John Coughlan SC, the tribunal counsel, said the statements appeared to reflect discussions which had taken place at a meeting of the internal government GSM project group on June 9th, 1995, and consequently the tribunal would inquire into whether the integrity of the competition was compromised.

But Mr O'Connell, in a letter yesterday, said attention should be drawn to the fact that an Esat delegation met members of the project group on June 19th, a day before the letter was sent.

A minuted record of this meeting mentioned that members of the project group told the delegation to examine media reports and draw their own conclusions on the progress of the competition.

Mr O'Connell said he had since learned that a delegation from rival bidders Persona had met the project group on June 20th, and a minute of that meeting showed they were told the delay would be 7-8 weeks.

Arising from this, Mr O'Connell said that while he did not have a direct recollection of the events he considered it "likely" that the sources of information for the letter came from either newspaper reports, an unminuted comment at the meeting of June 19th and/or information gleaned from the European Commission by Communicorp's Brussels-based solicitor, Mr Jarlath Burke.

Mr O'Connell added that he was "certain" he received instructions on the matter from Communicorp, and considered it "very likely" that instructions were given to him by one or more of Mr O'Brien, Mr Burke and Mr Peter O'Donoghue of Esat.