THE INSPECTORS: Colm Keena on the trail followed by the High Court inspectors
The appointment of High Court inspectors to investigate Ansbacher Cayman Ltd came about as a result of the decision of the then Tánaiste, Ms Mary Harney, to appoint an authorised officer to investigate Celtic Helicopters.
Mr Gerry Ryan, an accountant in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, was appointed in September, 1997, immediately in the wake of the McCracken (Dunnes Payments) Report.
The tribunal had disclosed that Celtic Helicopters had taken out loans which were backed by funds in the Ansbacher Deposits, and even had had a £150,000 loan repaid with funds from the Ansbacher Deposits. Mr Justice McCracken did not accept the evidence of Mr Ciaran Haughey that he had not known the loan had been repaid from third party funds.
In time Mr Ryan reported back to Ms Harney that he could not complete his inquiry into Celtic Helicopters without getting access to certain information and this led Ms Harney, in June, 1998, to appoint him to Guinness & Mahon bank, IIB Bank, Ansbacher Cayman and Hamilton Ross Co Ltd. The former two are Dublin banks; the latter two are Cayman companies. Hamilton Ross is a Cayman trust management company which was part of Ansbacher Cayman at one stage.
When the late Mr John Furze, a Cayman banker, left Ansbacher Cayman in the early 1990s, he took Hamilton Ross with him. The company managed funds for a number of clients including Mr Charles Haughey.
The reports of authorised officers appointed under the Companies Acts 1990 are confidential. When Mr Ryan completed his report into Ansbacher Cayman and presented it to Ms Harney, she decided to seek the appointment of High Court inspectors under the Companies Acts. The reports of High Court inspectors may be published, in full or in part. The decision rests with the courts.
Ms Harney, in her approach to the courts, sought the appointment of inspectors who would investigate the activities of Ansbacher in this jurisidiction and name its Irish clients. Two years earlier, when the government was considering the terms of reference of the Moriarty (Payments to Politicians) Tribunal, it had decided not to instruct it to name Ansbacher clients.
Ms Harney's application to the High Court in September, 1999, was grounded on an affadavit by Mr Paul Appleby, a senior civil servant with Ms Harney's department and now the Director of Corporate Enforcement.
Mr Appleby's affadavit was filed along with exhibits which included Mr Ryan's report. It was not published but was understood to contain the names of 120 people and companies who Mr Ryan believed were Ansbacher clients. Mr Appleby, in his affadavit, said Ms Harney believed the business of Ansbacher (Cayman) Ltd was carried on with an intent to defraud the Revenue Commissioners and that certain of its officers, agents and Irish clients were knowingly a party to the carrying on of the business with intent to defraud.
She was aware officers of the company destroyed, mutilated or were privy to the destruction and mutilation of books and documents, contrary to the Companies Act, and that the company had operated a banking business in Ireland without a licence for 20 years, Mr Appleby said.
While 120 parties who had done business with the bank had been identified, Mr Ryan believed there were many others who had not been identified, the court heard. Mr Ryan had identified £50 million placed on deposit by Ansbacher in G&M in 1989. Mr Appleby said that according to Mr Ryan's report it was likely that the total assets of the off-shore trusts and companies involved in the Ansbacher Deposits may have been of the order of several hundred million pounds.
The court appointed three inspectors: retired High Court judge, Mr Justice Declan Costello; Ms Noreen P. Mackey; a barrister; and Mr Paul F. Rowan, a retired accountant who was involved in the liquidation of Merbro Finance, the Northern Ireland arm of the Gallagher group's Merchant Banking. That inquiry led to the jailing of Mr Patrick Gallagher for fraud.
The inspectors set up offices in Blackrock, Co Dublin, appointed staff and set about their inquiries. As the investigation proceeded more Ansbacher clients came to light. When Mr Justice Costello resigned for health reasons in December, 2000, it led to speculation as to the stress involved for the inspectors in dealing with an ever-growing number of senior business figures and professionals who had been clients of Ansbacher.
Mr Justice Costello was replaced by Circuit Court Judge Sean O'Leary and, on a part-time basis, Mr Michael Cush SC. By this stage the list of Ansbacher clients was believed to have grown significantly, to around 200 names.
The inspectors were involved in litigation in the Cayman Islands after Ansbacher approached the courts there for clarification as to whether under Cayman law it could co-operate with the inspectors. The court ruled that the bank could give information as to its activities in this jurisdiction but could not reveal the identities of clients.
While the inspectors' inquiry was proceeding the Moriarty Tribunal was also inquiring into the operation of the Ansbacher scheme. Its inquiry, however, did not include the naming of clients who were not politicians. In a dramatic development in November 1999 it discovered that Mr Denis Foley, the then Fianna Fáil TD from Tralee, Co Kerry, was an Ansbacher account holder. Mr Foley's identity had up to then been hidden from the tribunal by Mr Pádraig Collery for reasons which have never been properly explained. Mr Collery was perhaps the most senior surviving figure living here who was involved in the operation of the secretive Ansbacher scheme.
When Mr Foley's identity was revealed he resigned from his position as vice-chairman of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee. He was at the time a member of that committee's six member DIRT inquiry.
The inspectors' inquiry into Ansbacher cost €3.2 million overall. A number of times this amount has already been recouped for the Exchequer by the Revenue's parallel inquiry into the deposits and further significant revenue is likely to be collected over the coming months and years. It may also be possible that some of the cost of the inspectors' inquiry will be recouped from officers or clients of Ansbacher with assets here.