Evidence finds Quinn Jr had control of firms up until jailing
It also reveals that the Quinns attempted to backdate contracts worth combined annual salaries of €3.1m and termination payments worth almost €223m to five family members and two of their spouses to get around a High Court injunction preventing them from accessing such monies.
The former Anglo Irish Bank claims Seán Quinn Jr, Peter Darragh Quinn and Seán Quinn Sr have made little or no attempt to purge their contempt since their previous appearance before the High Court three months ago.
Lawyers for the bank (now known as the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation) said new evidence uncovered in the past three months demonstrates the Quinn family, contrary to their own evidence, still control companies in Russia to such an extent that they could reverse the asset-stripping of the companies as ordered by the High Court.
In an affidavit, IBRC states the documents also show the three men could comply with disclosure orders despite their protests that they are unable to do so.
The bank accused Seán Quinn Sr of deliberately obstructing the process in agreeing to its “purely procedural” request to assist IBRC with regard to the registration of new directors to the board of two Indian companies which were part of the Quinn group.
It claimed Mr Quinn was still failing to comply with disclosure orders, as not only was he involved in devising and implementing the asset-stripping scheme, but he had direct access to other family members which recent evidence showed had received and sent emails which should have been disclosed to the court.
IBRC noted that Mr Quinn had made it clear in public statements that he has no intention of assisting the bank in the recovery of the assets.
In the statement, IBRC’s group head of specialised asset management, Richard Woodhouse, said the new evidence confirmed the High Court’s findings last July and also showed the extent to which the Quinns gave “misleading and untruthful” evidence in that case.
The new evidence was recovered from a computer back-up server belonging to a Russian company, Finanssttroy, which owns the €180m Kutuzoff Tower building in Moscow.
IBRC claim the main server and other computer hardware were destroyed and software seriously damaged while it was clear that a large number of documents had been removed immediately before a bankruptcy administrator appointed by IBRC took possession of the property on Aug 13 last.
The bank said it was also clear that another Russian company, Vneshkonsalt, which was recently granted an appeal by a Russian court to be added to the list of Finansstroy’s creditors, was controlled by the Quinn family in a direct attempt to displace IBRC as the main creditor.
According to the bank, the new documents showed that Peter Quinn and Seán Quinn Jr exercised day-to-day control over a group of companies after last year’s court injunction.
An email showed Peter Quinn gave clear instructions that he was the sole person to authorise any payments in excess of $5,000 by Finansstroy in Jul 2011, at a time when he claimed he was no longer general director of the company.
The documents demonstrated that both men directed the extraction of funds from such companies in breach of a High Court order dating from last year.
In addition, the new evidence showed that the pair, together with Stephen Kelly, the husband of Aoife Quinn, were aware of the deliberate backdating of employment contracts worth over €40m to the family to make it appear they were created before the injunction date of Jun 27, 2011.
Documents also revealed that Seán Quinn Jr, Peter Quinn, Stephen Kelly and Aoife Quinn regularly travelled to Moscow, Kiev and Dubai during the period at the expense of companies including Finansstroy.
They demonstrated that the Quinns were able to request and obtain information about the Russian assets and their income without any difficulty, even during their contempt motion last July at a time they claimed control of the group had passed to other companies in Russia, Belize and Panama unconnected to them.
IBRC maintains that the Quinns are still hiding the detail of their control of the companies, including the whereabouts of some €500m in rent.
The evidence showed clearly that Seán Quinn Jr’s claims that he was helpless to influence actions in the companies were false.
The Quinns did not file a replying affidavit as the High Court heard they had only engaged a new legal team earlier this week.
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