Tag Archives: Sean Quinn


Staff at The Currency office; Editor of The Currency Ian Kehoe launching the website this morning; The Currency website

This morning.

Former editor of the Sunday Business Post Ian Kehoe and former business editor of the Sunday Business Post Tom Lyons launched their new subscription-only website The Currency.

You can become a member for €25 a month or €250 a year.

Too rich for our taste but what say you?

The Currency

Pics: Tom Lyons

UPDATE:

Denis O’Brien

Sean Quinn’s children (Seán Quinn Junior, Colette Quinn, Aoife Quinn, Ciara Quinn and Brenda Quinn) enter the Four Courts today on the first day of the case between them and the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation last month

This morning.

The High Court.

The five Quinn children had denied liability for around €415 million under guarantees in relation to loans advanced by Anglo to Quinn companies…

As part of the settlement judgment is to be entered against each of the five children, Ciara, Colette, Brenda, Aoife and Sean Quinn junior in the sum of just over €88 million each.

But the judgments are to be stayed on terms agreed between the parties.

In a statement, IBRC said the Quinn family had provided the bank with full disclosure and would relinquish any entitlement to any of the assets that were the subject of IBRC’s security.

It said it viewed the settlement as being in the best interests of creditors, in circumstances where it had received full disclosure from the Quinn family and where the very lengthy litigation that had begun in 2011, would be brought to a conclusion.

Final orders in the conspiracy case are expected in court tomorrow.

Legal battle between Quinn family and Anglo Irish Bank settled (RTÉ)

Rollingnews

Aoife Quinn and Seán Quinn Junior on their way to the Four Courts today

Today.

The first day of the case taken by businessman Sean Quinn’s five children against Irish Bank Resolution Corporation – centring on €2.34bn in loans given by the then Anglo Irish Bank to Quinn companies – began this morning.

The case is expected to last six months while 49 witnesses are expected to give evidence.

Sean Quinn’s €2.3bn in loans gambled with children’s future, court told (Mary Carolan, The Irish Times)

Rollingnews

Gulp.

Tom Lyons, on Businesspost.ie, reports:

Former billionaire Seán Quinn has returned to business by launching a new online sports betting venture called QuinnBet.

The new venture has just gone live and is targeting sports betting in Ireland and Britain. It also plans to launch an online casino later this year.

Seán Quinn Sr heads the business but a number of other family members are understood to be involved, including his son Seán Quinn Jr.

The business secured a gambling licence earlier this week. Like Quinn’s previous ventures in cement, manufacturing and insurance the new business appears to be aiming to win business by offering lower prices than rivals.

Fight!

Sean Quinn is back in business with betting venture (Businesspost.ie)

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Simon Harris TD (top ) and IBRC minutes

You may recall the IBRC board meeting minutes that were published by the Department of Finance last night.

They were from a March 15, 2012 meeting – the day the Siteserv sale to Denis O’Brien’s acquisition vehicle Millington was approved.

This morning, Fine Gael TD Simon Harris spoke to Audrey Carville on Morning Ireland and they  talked about a section of the minutes which appears to suggest there was a write-off of €119 million as opposed to the previously known figure of €100 million.

Audrey Carville: “In relation to those minutes from that meeting, which approved the sale of Siteserv it goes through that, ‘Following consideration, the board approved the proposal, to proceed with the sale of Siteserv, €48million, net proceeds for the bank €44.3million – a write-off of the balance of facilities of €119million, following the sale. However noting that this was around €10million in excess of the current impairment provision.’ What does that last bit mean? Because I think most people thought the write-off of the debt was around €100m?”

Simon Harris: “It’s impossible for you or I to ascertain this morning what exactly that means…”

Carville: “Is that new information to you?”

Harris: “I’ve seen, I’ve seen a number of figures in the public domain – in and around the €110 million mark. That obviously says €119 million. The reality is that we now have a structure in place to examine in a forensic manner all of those transactions and remember the bottom line here is, was the decision taken in relation to that transaction and any other transaction of concern done in a manner to minimise the loss to the taxpayer or indeed to maximise the return to the taxpayer.”

Carville: “So, you don’t know what that means? €119 million with around €10million in excess of the current impairment…”

Harris:It’s not possible for me or you, or indeed anyone else sitting here today to know that figure and it will be the job of the Commission to interrogate that and other transactions.”

Carville: “Ok, but those minutes have been in the  Department of Finance for many, many months, well over, how many years now? Two years now at this stage. So why were we continuously told that it was around €100 million of a write-off?”

Harris: “I’ve seen figures saying that it was around €110 million, also Audrey…”

Carville: “But why wasn’t that clarified? If the minutes were in the Department?”

Harris: “Those minutes, in the Department, as I’ve said already and the minister has clarified already on a number of occasions were misplaced. It’s important to say that they were copies of minutes that were held in IBRC, now a full copy of those minutes back in the Department of Finance that will be available to the Commission of Investigation.”

Carville: “But it all leads to a perception that information is being kept secret.”

Harris: “Well I don’t think so at all.”

Listen back here

Meanwhile

As you may know the minutes show former IBRC senior executive Richard Woodhouse – who managed Denis O’Brien’s loans with IBRC – was present at the March 15 meeting and discussed the sale.

This appears to contradict former IBRC chairman Alan Dukes who, during a press conference on April 24 of this year, said Mr Woodhouse “was kept out of discussions over the Siteserv deal within IBRC, as he also managed the relationship between the bank and Mr O’Brien.”

Further to this, readers may wish to note that in the redacted judgement, in the cases involving RTE versus Denis O’Brien and RTE versus IBRC, issued by High Court judge Donald Binchy yesterday, there is mention of Mr Woodhouse.

The judgement says RTE journalist David Murphy intended to report how Denis O’Brien spoke with Mr Woodhouse – who was also primarily responsible for managing the Quinn Group and pursuing the Quinn family over loans during his time at IBRC – and CEO of IBRC Mike Aynsley about extending the repayment of his loan facilities.

From the judgement:

Screen Shot 2015-06-04 at 12.54.40

In addition, the minutes mention that:

“Following a query, Mr Woodhouse further outlined the role which was undertaken by Mr Dix as a director of Siteserve plc. during this process with it being noted that he also served as a director of Quinn ROI. It was noted that the appointment to the Board of Quinn ROI had previously been approved by the Nomination and Governance Committee during 2011.”

What was the query and why was the Quinn Group mentioned in discussions about the sale of Siteserv?

Anyone?

Listen back to Morning Ireland interview in full here

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[Sean Quinn leaving the High Court in Dublin, June 2012]

Pat Kenny interviewed Sean Quinn this morning on Newstalk to discuss the Anglo tapes, his reputation as a gambler and his ‘fugitive’ nephew ‘Petey’.

Get a tay.

Pat Kenny: “We all heard of the video of Kiev, where Sean Quinn Jr and Peter Darragh Quinn are seen to be discussing a document and a signature and so on – and whatever about the legalities of it and whatever might be decided in court – it looks decidedly dodgy?”

Sean Quinn: “As regards the family and the way we’ve operated, or the way my children were reared and brought up – they would never be involved in anything like that – we were involved just in getting things done, making money, employing people and doing everything here 100% honest. So when we were put into this position about moving assets and how it would be done and how it wouldn’t – we didn’t do a very good job on that, and that’s not our forte, we’re not into that business.”

Kenny: “When it looked like (you) might have to lie in court, Peter Darragh Quinn had to lie in court – so be it?”

Quinn:
“Well, I don’t know, I don’t know what the details of it is, but you know, it’s not something we’d be used to.”

Kenny: “Are you in touch with Peter Darragh Quinn, and do you think he should just face the music now and get it over with as you and Sean Jr did?”

Quinn: “Well, I think it was a very difficult one, Petey, above all people, we tried to.. we all approached him and said we will do all that we can, anything we can do, we will do it. For example, we approached him in September 20011, more than two years ago and said, ‘We think there are assets that can be moved very quickly and all parties are going to lose them.’ Quinn and Anglo argued who owned them, we said we owned them Anglo said they owned them. But at the end of the day, if we go together and combine together, we will get these assets back, and we will be able to make sure and get them (assets) back. They weren’t interested in that, they didn’t want that. So, as regards when the case came along then for Petey, he was left, again he wrote to Anglo on a number of occasions and said, ‘I will do anything you want me to do, I will go to Russia, I’ll meet you, I’ll do anything you want me to do.’ But they wouldn’t do anything, they said, ‘All we want is the assets back. You give us back the assets, that’s all we want.’ And we said, ‘We can’t possibly give you the assets back, but if you work with us, together we can get the assets back.’ But they said, ‘No, you made the decision, you gave the assets away, you have to get them back.’

Kenny: “Are you in touch with him now (Peter Darragh Quinn)?”

Quinn:
“Yes, oh yeah.”

Kenny:
“And what advice do you give him?”

Quinn: “I don’t give him any advice.”

Kenny: “Is he in Northern Ireland?”

Quinn: “He is, yeah, he is yeah.”

Kenny: “And would you not say to him, come back and face the music and get it over with?”

Quinn: “I wouldn’t say that to Petey, because Petey found himself in an impossible position and I’d like to think that if the case is properly run, over the next two or three years, if the conspiracy case… if the we win the main case,which we will, the conspiracy case falls – now, whether there’s any relief for Petey at that stage, I don’t know. But Petey found himself in a position I can’t do anything about, I want to purge my contempt, I’m not allowed to do it, Anglo knows I’m not allowed to do it and they’re seeking me to the last. I wouldn’t advise any individual, Petey is 35/36 years of age.”

Kenny: “But you would, if you were advising him, say, ‘Wait out the litigation’?”

Quinn: “No, I wouldn’t say anything to him, I’d just say… he’s making his own judgement, I wouldn’t advise Petey one way or the other.”

Kenny: “The question of the ‘Anglo Tapes’, you mentioned some of them that went into the public domain through the Independent News and Media papers, ‘The Independent’, and ‘The Sunday Independent’, and we’ve heard that Sinn Fein have now got their hands on some other Anglo tapes, which they’re not as yet prepared to put into the public domain. By any chance did you or your family supply those tapes to Sinn Fein?”

Quinn: {laughing} “No, no we didn’t, I never saw the tapes.”

Kenny: “I just wondered during the process of discovery for your litigations whether you might have come across any of these, over the past time?”

Quinn: “The family would have received a lot of tapes, but I think the family may only have received about 5% of the tapes that are going to be available. I think that in the criminal proceedings and in the other proceedings that we would be bringing and all the people that we would be involved in – what you’ve seen yet in tapes – and I mean what the tapes does do – it appears to me that the tapes maybe shows a disrespect for the law and for The Regulator and for foreign countries and for various people.
But I think that is going to move on – there’s going to be big discussion between The Department of Finance and The Regulator and Anglo about what are we going to do with Sean Quinn – where are the board meetings at, where’s this, where’s that?
The tapes have got very little interest to me or the the family, because the tapes are at the small end of where we’re going – and where the family is going is much deeper than that, so the tapes are only on the periphery.

 

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