O’Brien launches legal bid to halt O’Reilly’s €1.87m pay-off

Telecoms and publishing billionaire Denis O’Brien wants to stop an “unduly generous” €1.87m severance payment being made to the man he ousted from the post of chief executive of Independent News and Media (INM) — Gavin O’Reilly.

In an unprecedented move, Paul Connolly, one of two directors on the INM board representing Mr O’Brien, the company’s biggest shareholder, yesterday told the High Court the payment of €1.87m to Mr O’Reilly was made with “indecent haste” and was “unduly generous”. The O’Brien directors failed last week to block the €1.87m payment at board level.

Mr Connolly has brought proceedings seeking declarations that the payment breached section 186 of the Companies Act because it was approved by the board without being put before the company’s shareholders at a general meeting.