Supreme Court victory for property developer

PROPERTY developer John Byrne has won a Supreme Court order overturning parts of the Ansbacher inspectors’ report into illegal offshore accounts which drew adverse inferences from his involvement with two Cayman Islands trusts.

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the findings of the inspectors in relation to Mr Byrne’s involvement with two trusts — the Tristan Settlement and the Prospect Settlement — were made in excess of their jurisdiction and must be quashed.

The decision arose from Mr Byrne’s giving evidence in January 2001 about the trusts before two of the inspectors, while another two were not present.