Cuisine de France founder loses legal challenge in €5m tax avoidance case

A Dublin businessman has today lost a legal challenge to a finding by a Revenue official that he and his wife engaged in a tax avoidance scheme.

The High Court heard Ronan McNamee, a founder of Cuisine de France, was one of 26 wealthy individuals who hired a London merchant bank called Schroder to devise millions of euro of losses for tax purposes.

The activities of the Schroders Ready-Made 26 group could have resulted in the State losing out on up to €110m in taxes.

The McNamees avoided paying Capital Gains Tax of more than €5m.