3 Russian firms paid Quinn’s daughter €380k

A daughter of bankrupt businessman Seán Quinn has told the Commercial Court she received €379,170 under employment contracts with three Russian companies which she signed without reading, because they were in Russian.

Aoife Quinn said the contracts covered the year Jul 2011 to Jul 2012 and her husband Stephen Kelly, brother Seán, or cousin Peter would have told her they were employment contracts. Her husband owned one of the companies, Peter owned a second, and she was not sure who owned the third.

She understood she would receive a wage, but did not know what work she would have to do or how much she would be paid when signing them. She had thought she got about €320,000, but the court heard her net salary was €379,170 after tax deducted at source.

She did not keep the contracts which were returned to the companies.

“Maybe I’m unusual but I’ve never kept a contract,” she said. Her salary was paid through Ocean Bank in Moscow and she had disclosed the sums in the Ocean Bank accounts, plus text messages from Ocean about the accounts as she had never received bank statements from it. She considered text messages “a convenient way” of monitoring her accounts.

Her brother Seán was to travel to Moscow to get bank statements from Ocean under powers of attorney signed by her and other family members.

She also agreed she opened four savings accounts in Dubai in late 2011 or early 2012 after legal proceedings were taken in Jun 2011 by the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation to prevent stripping of multimillion-euro assets in the Quinns’ international property group (IPG).

Not one cent was ever put into those accounts which were opened in late 2011 or early 2012 “to have a Dubai bank account”, she told Mr Justice Peter Kelly. Each account was opened in four different currencies — euro, sterling, dollars, and the local currency, she added.

Ms Quinn was being cross-examined by Paul Gallagher, counel for IBRC, formerly Anglo, on foot of the bank’s claims she and other Quinn family members had failed to disclose, as required by court order, all documents relating and information concerning any actions taken by them, or on their behalf, to place IPG assets beyond the reach of the bank.

The other four Quinn children, Brenda, Ciara, Colette, and Seán, Seán’s wife Karen Woods and Ciara’s husband Niall NcPartland, will also be cross-examined. The cross-examination was listed to run for two days but is now likely to run well into next week.

When Aoife Quinn was asked yesterday why she opened the Dubai accounts, Hugh Hartnett, counsel for the Quinns, objected that Mr Gallagher was straying into issues to be addressed in the main action.

Ms Quinn said she had no documents related to those savings accounts because she gave the bank statements to her previous lawyers, Eversheds, on foot of court orders requiring disclosure of her accounts and assets. That firm was exercising a claim over those and 26,000 other documents of the Quinns which had been under review by the lawyers.

The court was previously told Eversheds, which ceased representing the Quinns last July, has exercised a claim over documents due to issues over legal fees.

She had disclosed all documents in her possession, including emails, plus other documents received by her from other parties as part of efforts to help her brother Sean purge his contempt of court orders restraining asset stripping. She agreed a disclosure affidavit sworn by her last August stated she understood her obligation was to disclose all documents and information in her “possession, power or procurement”.