AN APPLICATION to have the former billionaire Seán Quinn (65) adjudicated a bankrupt in the Republic is to be heard by the courts in Dublin next Monday.
A hearing was agreed by Mr Justice John Edwards in the High Court yesterday afternoon just hours after a judge in the High Court in Belfast annulled Mr Quinn’s bankruptcy status there, which had been granted in November. Mr Quinn told the Belfast court he had assets of just £50,000.
The Dublin court agreed to bring forward a hearing after the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), formerly Anglo Irish Bank, said it feared Mr Quinn might move assets beyond its reach. Yesterday’s judgment by Mr Justice Donnell Deeny in Belfast followed a challenge brought by IBRC, which says it is owed €2.88 billion by Mr Quinn.
Mr Justice Deeny agreed with the bank’s case that Mr Quinn’s centre of main interest was in the Republic and not in Derrylin, Co Fermanagh, where Mr Quinn said he has been using an office since his business empire was wrenched from his control by the now State-owned bank last April.
Mr Justice Deeny, in his reserved judgment, said a lease on the Derrylin office presented to the court by Mr Quinn as part of his case was a “curious document” which, he concluded, was “prepared at some much later date to try and bolster the case” that Mr Quinn made to the court.
Speaking after the case, Mr Quinn rejected any suggestion he had tried to mislead the court. He said there was no chance IBRC would get back the money it was owed as he was no longer in control of the Quinn Group, which he said had been making substantial profits, before interest and other charges, up to the time it was seized by the bank.
A bankrupt in Northern Ireland can emerge from his or her debts in 12 months while in the Republic it can take up to 12 years.
Mr Quinn told the Belfast court before Christmas he was working on business ideas that were as yet at an embryonic stage.