Most employees ‘want Quinn sale to go ahead’

MOST of Quinn Insurance’s 1,600 employees are anxious its proposed sale to US insurer Liberty Mutual goes ahead because they believe it will safeguard their livelihoods, the High Court was told yesterday.

However, two groups representing a number of Quinn policyholders and others expressed concerns the deal would involve the transfer to Liberty of parts of the business only, plus only the employees attached to those parts, while the taxpayer would be left to fund the “husk” of the business for years to come.

Both groups — Concerned Irish Citizens (CIC) and Concerned Irish Business (CIB) — submitted that the High Court had not been given enough information about the deal by the insurer’s joint administrators. Their lawyers have asked the court to direct that sufficient information be given to the court, including details of an assets purchase agreement (APA).

Both groups also said they had been supportive of the Quinn Group’s alternative proposals for the insurer.

The President of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, yesterday began hearing the administrators’ application for approval for the proposed sale to a joint venture of Liberty and Anglo Irish Bank. The hearing continues today.

The sale proposals require €738 million public money to be paid out of the state’s insurance compensation fund to the insurer, to be funded by a 2% levy on all insurance policyholders in the state.

That payment has been agreed to by the Minister for Finance and sanctioned by the court, subject to its approving the sale. If the sale is sanctioned, €320m will be paid directly from the fund while the rest will be paid out as required following further court applications. The administrators claim the alternative to what they propose is a €1,300m liquidation of the insurer.

During yesterday’s hearing, the chairman of Quinn Insurance’s employee representative committee said the workers main concern was that the sale should go through.

Denis McDonald SC, for the administrators, said the court was being asked by CIB and CIC to address issues which it simply could not address.

Mr Justice Kearns said he would not shut out employees’ concerns. The administrators’ application was unique and entirely dependent on public funding, he said. The administrators had not considered the alternative solution advanced by the Quinn Group.