Sean Quinn Junior pledges to help Anglo get back €500m of assets
Sean Quinn Jnr wants to help the former Anglo Irish Bank recoup up to €500m of overseas assets, the High Court was told yesterday.
Mr Quinn’s new legal team said he had given “unequivocal” instructions to purge his contempt of the court orders not to interfere with the family’s International Property Group (IPG), which had led to him serving three months in jail.
Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne, who jailed Mr Quinn on 20 July last, said this “sounds very promising” after being informed of Mr Quinn’s intention by Ross Aylward.
Given the continuing exchange of correspondence between lawyers for Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) and the Quinn side, Shane Murphy SC, for the bank, said the sides had agreed the contempt proceedings against Mr Quinn Jnr, his father Sean Snr and his cousin Peter Darragh Quinn could be further adjourned.
Those contempt proceedings arose in the context of the bank’s proceedings against the Quinn children and some of their spouses, as well as against Peter Darragh Quinn and several companies, aimed at protecting up to €430m assets in IPG.
Mr Murphy said new lawyers had come on record for the Quinn children and some of their spouses, but not for Sean Quinn Snr or Peter Darragh Quinn.
The court heard yesterday there was still no appearance by or on behalf of Peter Darragh Quinn, who was jailed in his absence at the same time as Sean Jnr was sent to prison.
A warrant issued by the judge for his arrest remains unexecuted as he continues to live at his home in the North.
Sean Quinn Snr was jailed last month for nine weeks, and the judge was told by Karen Nolan BL that he had instructed his lawyers on November 7 that he no longer wished them to represent him.
The bank’s counsel, Mr Murphy, also said yesterday that correspondence from IBRC had been sent to the Quinn side related to its intention to “recalibrate” some 30 coercive orders made by the judge last July aimed at reversing asset-stripping measures.
The bank has initiated that “recalibration” process in light of a Supreme Court decision that the High Court was not entitled to jail Sean Quinn Jnr indefinitely on foot of those orders in circumstances where there was no actual findings that he was involved in most of those asset-stripping measures.
Developments
Also yesterday, Mr Justice Frank Clarke ruled that a “material change of circumstances” justified granting a separate application by IBRC to set aside a previous court decision referring a legal issue raised by the Quinns to the European Court of Justice.
That issue was whether the courts here or in Cyprus should determine the dispute between IBRC and the Quinns about their international businesses.
The Quinns had argued that the Cyprus courts should decide the matter, but the judge directed the reference should be set aside given several developments in the case, including the loss of a court action in Cyprus by the Quinns.
In the changed circumstances, the legal proceedings here will be over long before the Quinn Cypriot proceedings can even get significantly off the ground, he noted.
Department of Health criticised by Ombudsman over disability scheme
For the second time in less than a month, the Department of Health has been severely criticised by the Ombudsman for its handling of a disability scheme.
Last month, a report by the Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, revealed that the department had been acting illegally by failing to remove the upper age limit on the Mobility Allowance scheme for people with disabilities.
The payment of up to €208 per month is made to people who cannot walk, but who would benefit from trips outside the home. Failure to remove the upper age limit of 66 years is contrary to the Equal Status Act, the Ombudsman said.
This latest criticism centres on the Motorised Transport Grant, a means tested HSE payment made to people with disabilities who need to purchase a car in order to retain employment. It is also aimed at people with disabilities who need to have a car or other vehicle adapted, again for the purpose of having a job.
The office of the Ombudsman carried out an investigation following a complaint by a young man with severe disabilities, who had been refused the grant.
The office upheld the complaint and found that the HSE’s operation of the grant ‘reflected an approach to disability which is unduly restrictive, improperly discriminatory and fails to have proper regard to the Equal Status Acts’.
The Ombudsman insisted that these ‘defects’ in the operation of the scheme ‘reflect a failure by the department in its responsibility to oversee the implementation of the scheme and a failure to provide the HSE with adequate and clear guidance’.
One of the main problems identified by the Ombudsman is that eligibility for the scheme is confined to people who cannot walk because of a physical disability.
“The Ombudsman’s view, echoing that of a 2009 equality officer decision, is that the scheme should have regard also to the consequences for mobility of psychological or intellectual disabilities,” the office explained.
The HSE has since approved payment of the grant to the young man who initially made the complaint. However, the department has rejected a recommendation from the Ombudsman, which sought changes to the scheme in order to make it complaint with the Equal Status Acts.
The department insisted that acceptance of this recommendation would have serious financial implications for the State.
However, Ms O’Reilly stated that there could be ‘no justification for allowing this disregard for the law to continue’.
“We are a society ruled by law,” she insisted.
State Street investigation over overcharging of Irish pension funds
UK regulators are investigating allegations that State Street overcharged Ireland’s state pension fund and several big UK corporate pension funds, including those of the Royal Mail and J Sainsbury, billing them for fees not included in their contracts, according to people familiar with the matter.
Ireland’s national debt agency said on Thursday it had notified Irish police that the big US custodian bank had reaped €3.2m in improper fees and trading profits from the national pension fund which was selling €4.7bn in assets to generate cash to invest in and rescue the country’s banks.
“What happened here was fraudulent in nature and totally unacceptable,” John Corrigan, chief executive of the National Treasury Management Agency, told an Irish parliamentary committee.
State Street said it had reimbursed the Irish debt agency and several other clients. People familiar with the matter said they included the Royal Mail and Sainsbury pension funds. The bank also sacked three staff linked to the transactions and reported the matter to the UK Financial Services Authority in September 2011.
“In a limited number of instances, we charged commissions on transition management mandates that were not consistent with our contractual agreements,” State Street said in a statement.
“The actions of these former employees and their interaction with a limited number of clients do not reflect the high standards of conduct, communications and transparency that State Street expects. We took swift and appropriate disciplinary actions in response to this conduct,” the bank added.
Mr Corrigan said the debt agency was awaiting the outcome of the FSA investigation before deciding how to proceed and whether to press for additional compensation. He said a separate state contract for the management of €900m pension fund assets with State Street was also under review.
The FSA, Sainsbury and the Royal Mail all declined to comment.
The overcharging allegations are centred in State Street’s “transition management” unit, which helps large pension funds sell assets. The bank sometimes charges a management fee and sometimes charges commission.
In Ireland’s case, the pension fund had agreed to pay a fixed fee of €698,000, according to a report by the debt agency. But the bank then applied commissions of €2.6m and also became involved with the trade as a participant, earning a further €600,000 in profits.
The debt agency said it only became aware of the improper commissions in late 2011 when it read media reports about similar problems faced by other State Street clients in the UK. Mr Corrigan told members of parliament it had been an “eye opener” when dealing with an institution of international reputation to find cash had been “siphoned off” improperly.
State Street is being sued by the state of California which alleges the bank improperly charged state pension funds for foreign exchange services, and several US authorities including the Securities and Exchange Commission are also looking into the matter, the bank has said in regulatory findings.
Coillte harvest ash trees early to help Irish Hurley makers
Coillte has announced an early ash tree harvest, in order to help hurley makers get around tough new ash import regulations.
The new rules mean ash can only be brought into the country if it is from an area that is free from ash dieback disease, or if it is kiln-dried or if the outer surface is sawn off.
Coillte have said it is already harvesting ash in one of its forests in Co Westmeath, to ensure the ongoing survival of the hurley-making industry.
No cases of ash dieback have been found in the Republic to date.
The island that vanished off the face of the earth?
It’s a mystery worthy of James Bond. A tiny island in the Pacific which appears on a range of maps seems to have disappeared without a trace.
Australian scientists who went in search of Sandy Island – which appears midway between Australia and the French-governed New Caledonia on Google Earth among other world maps – found nothing but sea when they arrived.
The Times Atlas of the World appears to identify the sizeable phantom island in the Coral Sea as Sable Island, and weather maps used by the Southern Surveyor, an Australian maritime research vessel also say it exists.
But when the ship, which was tasked with identifying fragments of the Australian continental crust submerged in the Coral Sea, steamed to where it was supposed to be there was nothing there.
The island supposedly sits in an area of very deep sea, making its existence something of a geological oddity that researchers wanted to investigate.
However, when they got there, it was nowhere to be found.
‘We wanted to check it out because the navigation charts on board the ship showed a water depth of 1,400 metres (4,620 feet) in that area – very deep,’ said Dr Maria Seton, of the University of Sydney, after the 25-day voyage.
‘It’s on Google Earth and other maps so we went to check and there was no island. We’re really puzzled. It’s quite bizarre. ‘How did it find its way onto the maps? We just don’t know, but we plan to follow up and find out.’
The island’s appearance on Google perhaps should have sparked suspicions. Compared with nearby islands on which the undulations of ground are visible, Sandy Island appears merely as a dark blob. News of the invisible island sparked debate on social media, with tweeter Charlie Loyd outpointing that Sandy Island is also on Yahoo Maps as well as Bing Maps ‘but it disappears up close’.
On www.abovetopsecret.com, discussions were robust with one poster claiming he had confirmed with the French hydrographic office that it was indeed a phantom island and was supposed to have been removed from charts in 1979. daily times monitor
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