Quinn ‘asset stripping’ ruling deferred

HIGH Court judge Mr Justice Frank Clarke is to give judgment on Tuesday on whether or not to grant further orders restraining members of Sean Quinn’s family from making changes to their international businesses.

He has heard allegations that Quinn family members and Quinn company interests have been in breach of injunctions he granted Anglo Irish Bank last month restraining the Quinn family and others from asset-stripping their companies abroad.

The Quinns and Quinn Investments Sweden were accused in the High Court of involvement in a conspiracy to put assets in Ukraine, Russia, Sweden, India and Cyprus beyond the reach of Anglo.

In the application for further injunctions against the Quinns, Anglo’s head of corporate projects, Richard Woodhouse, told the court that new matters had come to light which had not previously been disclosed by Sean Quinn, his daughters Ciara, Colette, Brenda and Aoife, his son, Sean, as well as his nephew, Peter, and sons-in-law Stephen Kelly and Niall McPartland and Quinn Investments Sweden and Indian Trust.

Mr Woodhouse told the court that new information was coming to light on an almost daily basis regarding steps by theQuinn family to further what Anglo called their “conspiracy”.

Bill Shipsey, SC, who appeared with Rossa Fanning for the Quinn family, had claimed that there was a deficit in evidence in the bank’s application seeking new injunctions and Anglo’s request for the court to exercise exceptional discretion.

Judge Clarke had been expected to deliver his reserved judgment yesterday.