Former Ansbacher banker barred from running business

A discredited former Ansbacher banker was today barred from running a business for nine years over his role in the secret investments scandal.

Padraig Collery, computer expert and record keeper, worked for the bank from 1976 and ran is affairs in Dublin in the mid-1990s helping clients to dodge tax and plough huge sums into hidden accounts.

He is the first person to be disqualified over Ansbacher – one of the biggest financial and political controversies in the history of the State.

It was estimated he made £400,000 (€583,717) [sterling] running the business.

The Ansbacher Report found hundreds of people held deposits of at least £50m (€72m) in offshore accounts during the 1980s and 1990s through an ingenious system of secret banking, with little or no paper trails.

It disclosed widespread tax evasion and evidence that Collery assisted two firms Ansbacher (Cayman) Ltd and Hamilton Ross Company Ltd to operate in the State in breach of company law.

In a ruling at the High Court, Ms Justice Mary Finlay-Geoghegan said Collery was not fit to run a company.

“The conduct of Mr Collery from 1991 to 1997 in relation both to Ansbacher and Hamilton Ross as found by the Inspectors is such as to make him unfit to be concerned in the management of a company,” she said.

High Court Ansbacher inspectors found evidence that Collery helped the two banks and their hundreds of clients to evade tax. But not all Ansbacher customers were tax dodgers.

Paul Appleby, director of corporate enforcement, who brought the action against Collery, said: “These were highly secretive operations which were exposed over time using the valuable investigative provisions in the Companies Acts.”

“The message for others from today’s judgment is that the use of corporate structures for unlawful purposes is not worth the potential damage to personal and corporate reputation.”

The Revenue Commissioners report for 2004 showed 45.4m euro (£31m) had been paid to them from Ansbacher investigations. Only 108 of the identified 289 cases had been finalised, suggesting further large sums will be collected.

Ms Justice Finlay-Geoghegan said the appropriate period of disqualification for Collery was 12 years.

She said his conduct was of a particularly serious nature but fixed the term at nine years after a number of mitigating factors were taken into account.

The High Court inspectors published their Ansbacher report in 2002. It claimed that Collery may have been involved in fraud, helped clients furnish false returns and statements.

It noted Collery began a long banking career in 1968 and was involved in the affairs of Ansbacher from 1976 as a senior official in Guinness and Mahon Bank.

The inspectors indicated he assisted Mr Desmond Traynor, Ansbacher’s principal representative in Ireland and one-time advisor to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, in the bank’s affairs for almost 20 years.

Following Mr Traynor’s death in 1994, Collery effectively took over Ansbacher affairs in the State.