I've written on this subject on several occassions over the past few months and contributed my research to other political blog sites.
The Irish public seems to be absolutely unaware of 'poor old' Sean Quinns attempts to steal hundreds of millions from the Irish Taxpayer.
Quinns family companies/trusts retain some sizable property assets in Russia, Ukraine, India, Turkey and other locations and for many months the Quinn Family and its representatives have been working behind the scenes attempting to change the ownership of properties to newly setup offshore trusts before IBRC (Anglo or if you prefer 'us') can legally move on the property.
The 'attempted scam' would seem quite simple on the face of it, Fermanagh Trust Ltd transfers the property to Fermanagh Trust Inc, this is carried out discreetly and not picked up by anyone initially. The problem is that the Irish Public (through the IRBC) will be preparing to pursue Fermanagh Trust Ltd through the courts in Cyprus (where it is registered), not knowing that the ownership has been transferred to Fermanagh Trust Inc registered in Belize.
I am unaware of the miniscule details, however a couple of months ago Quinn was rumbled attempting to transfer one of his sizable assets to a Belize registered trust. News published on 5th January 2012 indicates that a British Virgin Islands Company (generally regarded as bogus companies used for tax evasion and effectively outside the law) has taken ownership of the Kiev Shopping Mall. BVI companies are normally owned by trusts which are registered in Isle of Man, Jersey or Guernsey and discovery of the complex ownership can prove difficult especially when dealing with secretive jurisdictions. No doubt the Quinns are the benificiaries of the company which is currently receiving rental income in excess of €10M per year from the shopping mall in question (remember this property should now be owned by the Irish public as part payment on the €2.5BN in outstanding loans)
The IRBC (the Irish public) is currently pursuing Quinn through Ukranian and Cypriot courts and has cases pending in Russia - this is why the IRBC has requested a stay on any changes to the ownership of the properties pending outcome of the cases. Both the Irish Government and IRBC (and myself) have doubts about the impartiality of the Ukranian Courts. Remember that opposition politicians can be effectively found guilty on the instructions of the Ukranian President and both Lawyers and Judges are open to bribes.
Quinn is now playing very dirty with the Irish Public.
Quinn says he is shocked State 'interfered' in his cases abroad
Ref: Irish Independent 29.11.2011FORMER BILLIONAIRE Seán Quinn said yesterday he was “shocked” that Government Ministers had “interfered” in court proceedings abroad where his family is trying to prevent properties worth hundreds of millions of euro being seized by the state-owned Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, formerly Anglo. Mr Quinn made the comment in a statement issued after the Commercial Court in Dublin made an unprecedented €1.7 billion summary judgment order against him in favour of the bank.
A spokesman for Taoiseach Enda Kenny confirmed last night that a case being taken in Ukraine by the bank in relation to valuable property there was “referenced” by Mr Kenny during a meeting in September with Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. “It was referenced, not discussed, and with a full expression of respect for the independence of the Ukrainian judicial process,” the spokesman said.
Mr Quinn’s comment is also understood to be a reference to alleged representations by the Irish Embassy to Russia, where the Quinns also bought valuable commercial property using loans from Anglo. In October, a Russian businessman, Andrey Golishev, reportedly wrote to the Irish Ambassador in Moscow, Philip McDonagh, complaining of representations made to the Russian ministry of foreign affairs. A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs was not able to comment on the matter last night.
Mr Quinn’s wife, Patricia, and the couple’s five children are involved in multi-jurisdictional disputes with the bank over properties in Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and India. The bank is trying to seize the properties which it says were given as collateral for massive loans given to the family by Anglo. However, the family is resisting the bank’s efforts, disputing the legality of the loans and the charges the bank says it has on the properties. The properties are believed to be worth in excess of €500 million.
Last week, a Dublin accountant, Robert Dix, who is involved in the efforts of the bank to seize the properties, wrote an open letter to prime minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov, in which he said the company that legitimately owned a Kiev shopping mall worth tens of millions of euro, was in danger of being deprived of its property. The massive judgment order made against Mr Quinn yesterday followed another order made last week for €417 million, again in favour of the bank, bringing the total owed by Mr Quinn to €2.16 billion.
In the statement issued by his public relations consultant yesterday, Mr Quinn said: “Today’s action by Anglo Irish Bank in my view is totally pointless, self-serving and vindictive.” He added: “In no way does it improve the bank’s prospects of recovering money for the taxpayer.
Reported in 'The Daily Mail' Nov 29th 2011
In court Quinn's lawyer claimed that the family home in fact belongs to his children, and that he had no assets and a pension worth just €10,000. But Land Registry documents show the house was only ever registered in the name of Mr Quinn and his wife, implying that some sort of private transfer of ownership may have happened since.
There have been plenty more transfers of assets by the Quinn family, who were recently accused in court by Anglo of engaging in a 'conspiracy' to hide and redistribute their assets. His children and sons-in-laws are already facing criminal investigation in Sweden for allegedly putting assets out of the reach of Anglo Irish Bank.
Anglo has lodged formal complaints to the Company Registrations Office in Stockholm, claiming the Quinns had illegally transferred properties worth hundreds of millions out of its reach.The complaints were made under Chapter 11 of the Swedish Criminal Code, which carries prison sentences of up to six years.
Investigations have also revealed that the Quinn family have created dozens of new companies all over the world, from Cavan to Moscow and India, in a mirror structure of the original Quinn Group – with assets now moved into the new firms. Two husbands of Seán Quinn's daughters, both of whom married into the family within the past five years, have emerged as the directors of many of these firms. Unlike Mr Quinn's children, the two men never signed guarantees to Anglo loans.
In one case, a €180m Moscow office block and almost €5m in cash were moved from a Quinn company into a new firm. Seán Quinn senior and his children are being sued by Anglo for personal guarantees they made in relation to €2.8bn in loans used to buy shares in Anglo. The bank claims the transfers breach personal guarantees and described some of them in court as 'asset stripping'.
And in the latest twist, we have a new defence for a €3M loan owed by Patricia Quinn (for home decorating) - the defence is effectively "he told me to do it......"
It would be interesting to see someone try "Honest Guv....I wouldnt have robbed the bank, but my wife has expensive tastes and she wore the pants in our relationship".
Thankfully, a ruling has been made in favour of the Bank (or the public if you prefer)
www.independent.ie 16th Dec 2011
THE wife of bankrupt Sean Quinn, who was once Ireland’s richest man, has been ordered to repay a €3m loan from Anglo Irish Bank that she signed her name to, but claims she knew nothing about.Mr Justice Peter Kelly made the order at the Commercial Court today. Patricia Quinn was also ordered to pay the costs of the case taken by Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IRBC), formerly Anglo.
She had claimed that that she only "very recently" became aware she was a customer of Anglo Irish Bank -- even though her name appears on loan documents for millions of euro of borrowings from the nationalised bank. Summing up, Justice Peter Kelly said Mrs Quinn had failed to make an arguable defense to the claim by the bank for the repayment of the loan. He added that even a glance at the documents she signed would have shown all but an illiterate person that it was some form of borrowing from the bank.
In court papers filed in the family’s separate legal action against the bank it was also revealed that her daughter Brenda became the owner of the Slieve Russell Hotel in Cavan when she was aged just three. The Quinn family claim that the hotel has been owned by Brenda since it was built in 1990 but was held in trust for her by her mother until she turned 18. They admitted that it was difficult to say when Brenda became aware of her ownership of the hotel, according to a report in today’s Irish Times. Mrs Quinn and her five children are challenging the bank’s claims that they owe €2.3bn claiming that the loans are “tainted with illegality”.
Mrs Quinn’s claims were read out in the Commercial Court, as her lawyers attempted to fight off Anglo Irish Bank's attempts to force her to repay a €3m loan she signed with her husband. Her lack of knowledge of her dealings, an ignorance she described as "embarrassing", is all the more striking since her husband famously lost more than €3bn on a disastrous punt on Anglo's shares. In court yesterday, Mrs Quinn claimed she was not liable for the loan because she never realised she had signed up for it, never received the benefit of it and never received any legal advice before signing the loan documents. But the senior lawyer acting for Anglo, Paul Gallagher, said Mrs Quinn was making "incredible" claims that she did not have to repay the loan because she was a homemaker unduly influenced by her husband.
Mrs Quinn's barrister, Bill Shipsey, said that while it may sound astonishing, his client was a housewife with no business sophistication and a claim of undue influence could be advanced in her case. Mr Justice Peter Kelly quoted Mr Bumble from Charles Dickens's novel 'Oliver Twist' and said if that was the law, then "the law is an ass". He said Mrs Quinn was advancing the "startling proposition" she was "a cat's paw" for her husband with no clue about documents she was signing and also "clueless" about being a director of many companies and a company secretary. Anglo, now known as Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), has strongly rejected Mrs Quinn's claims that she is not responsible for the loan.
It has also argued that while she disputed the bank's description of her as a "business lady", she had been a director of 63 Quinn group companies in the Republic, 28 Quinn companies in the UK and secretary of about 10 companies. In an affidavit, Mrs Quinn said she was not a business lady, had been a homemaker for the past 36 years and had been looking after her husband since she married at the age of 21. However, Mr Gallagher referred to an affidavit in which Michael O'Sullivan, of Anglo, said Mrs Quinn displayed business knowledge during a conversation with him. Mrs Quinn has also claimed she only realised "very recently" she was a customer of Anglo. She claims that over many years she signed documents when asked to do so by her husband or his colleagues in the Quinn group, but says she was never informed about the nature or impact of the documents. "This is embarrassing to admit but it is the truth," she said in an affidavit.
IBRC was previously granted summary judgment against Mr Quinn over the €3m loan. The bank claimed it was told the loan was to go towards decorating the Quinns' home at Ballyconnell, but the court heard Mr Quinn had directed the money be paid into an account of Quinn Manufacturing Ltd.
Mrs Quinn argues she has a defence on several grounds to the bank's claim and is entitled to a full hearing. In affidavits, she said she never worked with the Quinn group of companies and was never involved in any business or financial dealings "beyond deciding upon the weekly groceries and providing for the household expenses". She only became aware of the loan and demand for repayment after this case was taken, she said. It was now clear to her, contrary to what was stated on the loan facility letter, that the funds were used for commercial purposes, she added. Mr Gallagher argued nothing said by Mrs Quinn amounted to a defence to summary judgment. A document signed in five places by Mrs Quinn on December 14, 2006, was clearly for a loan and she had signed under the words, "Borrower's Acceptance". She accepted those were her signatures. Mrs Quinn also did not deny the extent of her company directorships. If she signed documents without reading or understanding them, that was negligence on her part for which the bank was not liable.
If she was found to be not liable because she did not read the documents, that would have huge implications for contracts, he said. Mr Shipsey argued the bank had failed to address Mrs Quinn's claim she did not understand she was going to personally borrow €3m. Mr Justice Kelly noted that during another case about 25 years ago concerning the conduct of the affairs of a pub company, the late Ms Justice Mella Carroll observed the days were gone when wives could be treated akin to infants or persons of unsound mind.
- Laura Noonan and Independent.ie reporters
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