€5.4m pension excluded from claim

DAVID Drumm’s €5.4 million pension is believed to have been excluded from the assets the former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive could surrender to his former employer as part of a bid to repay his debts.

Mr Drumm owes a total of between €10m and €12m to various creditors — of which Anglo is the largest, being owed €8.5m. The now nationalised bank’s former chief — who has been based in the US for the past few years and who filed for bankruptcy there last month — met with creditors for the first time last night, in Boston.

Mr Drumm, who also apparently has a major problem just covering a personal credit card bill of about €35,000, is seeking a bankruptcy order from a Boston court that would give him protection from creditors for the next eight years or so.

While bankruptcy protection is a possibility, doubt has been expressed if Mr Drumm will succeed, simply given the amount of questions from creditors which need answering. Under US law, various fines and the threat of imprisonment could be the consequences if Mr Drumm is viewed as having mislead the courts.

Last night’s meeting — at Boston’s JW McCormack Post Office and Court House — marked the first time Mr Drumm has appeared in court since his bankruptcy filing last month and the breakdown in negotiations with Anglo.

Those negotiations had featured an initial offer of his pension as part of a settlement on the back of Anglo’s legal proceedings — taken against him here — but the bank rejected that offer.

Among the answers being sought from Mr Drumm at last night’s meeting surrounded the full extent of his new business interests since relocating to the US, how he managed to obtain an investor visa for the US and where exactly the money from his many loans disappeared. The creditors were looking for a full statement of Mr Drumm’s accounts for the past eight to nine years.