Rows between partners ‘threatened Esat survival’

ROWS between the Irish and Norwegian partners threatened Esat Digifone’s survival less than a week before the consortium was granted the licence to operate the country’s second mobile phone network, the Moriarty Tribunal heard yesterday.

Four days before the May 16, 1996, licence award, Digifone solicitors recorded that consortium chairman Denis O’Brien was also at loggerheads with financier Dermot Desmond, another party in the GSM network deal.

A memo of a meeting on May 12 involving Mr O’Brien’s Communicorp Group and Mr Desmond’s IIU company said Mr O’Brien no longer trusted Mr Desmond’s involvement in the consortium. The memo said Mr O’Brien would seek an injunction to block the signing of the licence.