O'Brien says he had #30m guarantee of funding

Mr Denis O'Brien told the Moriarty Tribunal yesterday that he told the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications in 1995 that he had a "irrevocable" guarantee for £30 million from a US venture capital company, even though his own solicitor believed he had no such guarantee.

Mr O'Brien said his solicitor, Mr Owen O'Connell, of William Fry solicitors, may not have known about an oral agreement he had with Mr Massimo Prelz, an executive with the venture capital firm Advent International.

Mr O'Brien told civil servants who were assessing the bids for the State's second mobile phone licence that he had an irrevocable guarantee for the money. The Esat Digifone consortium made an oral presentation linked to its bid on September 12th, 1995. At the time Telenor was also telling Mr O'Brien it was not satisfied with the Advent deal.

The tribunal was shown a number of documents that contrasted with Mr O'Brien's evidence that he had an irrevocable guarantee from Advent for the funds. Mr O'Brien said there was a difference between legal and commercial realities.

At one stage during a day of questioning over the nature of the agreement Mr O'Brien had with Advent, he was asked if he knew the difference between "I have accepted" and "I will accept". Mr O'Brien said it "depends on who you are writing to".

Mr O'Brien told Mr John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, that Mr Coughlan was "looking at things as black or white" but he, Mr O'Brien, could "never look at things as black or white". He would never have got to where he was if he did.

Advent wrote a letter to the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications confirming it had offered £30 million to Mr O'Brien's company, Communicorp, which would be available if Esat Digifone won the State's second mobile phone licence competition. The letter formed part of the Digifone bid for the licence.

The firm wrote a similar letter to Telenor, the Norwegian firm that was Communicorp's partner in Esat Digifone. Mr O'Brien gave a 5 per cent involvement to Advent in the Esat Digifone consortium as part of the deal involving the letters.

On August 2nd, 1995, two days before the bid for the licence was to be submitted, a Telenor executive, Mr Knut Haga, said in a letter that he had been told by a lawyer acting for Advent that there was no agreement between Advent and Communicorp in relation to the £30 million. When this was pointed out to Mr O'Brien, Mr O'Brien said the content of the letter was "gaga".

The tribunal heard that Telenor agreed to submit the bid on August 4th, 1995, despite not being satisfied in relation to the issue of Communicorp securing a financial guarantee from a third party. "They were pregnant," Mr O'Brien said. "They were committed." In a letter sent to Telenor that day, Mr O'Brien said he had an offer from Advent but didn't like the terms and was looking elsewhere for a better deal.

Mr O'Brien said he was invited to Glasgow by Mr Dermot Desmond to see Glasgow Celtic play Liverpool on August 10th, 1995. Mr J.P. McManus was among those present. On the way back, Mr Desmond and Mr O'Brien went to the bench seat at the back of the plane to "have a chat" about Mr O'Brien's licence bid.

Negotiations arising from this conversation eventually led to Mr Desmond taking a 25 per cent stake in Esat Digifone and the deal with Advent being abandoned. Mr O'Brien is to resume his evidence on November 24th.