A businessman yesterday denied owning an Irish company which was to buy a number of Italian Lamborghini cars for a London antique dealer.
Mr Gerard Walsh, a quantity surveyor and a member of the firm Walsh and Partners, Dennehys Cross, Cork, is one of the defendants in a High Court action being taken by Ms Amanda Forshall, Paultons Square, Chelsea, London, a director of Fine Arts and Collections, London.
She has claimed she paid more than £650,000 as a deposit on nine Lamborghini Diablos in 1990, through Lambo Motors of Ireland Ltd, Macroom, Co Cork. The action is being heard by Mr Justice Shanley.
When the case opened last month Mr Hugh O'Neill SC, for Ms Forshall, said the money his client paid for the cars had never been recovered. Her reputation had been severely damaged and she had lost a number of valuable Japanese contacts.
He said the main culprit was Lambo Motors.
Yesterday, during cross examination by Mr O'Neill, Mr Walsh said his meeting with Ms Forshall at a classic car showroom in London in March 1990 was a coincidence. He had arranged to meet Mr Christopher Renwick, who shared the showroom with Mr Christopher Dunhill, to have him sign bank documents for a hotel development in Kinsale, Co Cork.
He could not see how Mr Renwick could have introduced him to Ms Forshall as the owner of Lambo Motors because he was not the owner of the company.
He also denied telling Ms Forshall that his uncle was on the board of Chrysler, which owned Lamborghini Motors, and that he had the Lamborghini dealership. That was totally untrue, he said.
In early June he agreed to help Ms Forshall to get a Lamborghini car from Lambo Motors for a Japanese client because of problems she was having with Mr Dunhill.
Mr Walsh said he believed Lambo Motors had arranged to get Lamborghini cars direct from the company.
He said he had told Ms Forshall more than once not to introduce him to her clients as the owner of Lambo Motors.
The hearing continues.