A nephew of bankrupt businessman Sean Quinn denies being the “mastermind” of a strategy to put multimillion-euro assets of the Quinn family beyond the reach of Anglo Irish Bank, but agreed steps taken were “wrong and unethical”, although he did not believe they breached Russian law.

Bankrupt businessman Sean Quinn Sr and his nephew Peter Darragh Quinn were the prime movers of a “deliberate and deceptive” strategy to strip Quinn companies of valuable international property assets so as to put them out of the reach of Anglo Irish Bank, it was claimed in court yesterday.