Quinn Jnr hasn't 'a clue where any money has gone', court hears

The son of bankrupt tycoon Sean Quinn has not got a clue where rents from the family’s global property empire have gone, he has told a court.

Sean Quinn Junior said he was aware of allegations that money had gone missing from Quinn Companies, but added there was a lot of cash sitting in bank accounts.

“I have not got a clue about where any money has gone,” he told the Commercial Court.

“May I be struck dead when I leave this court if I am wrong.”

Mr Quinn Junior is being cross-examined by lawyers for the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC).

They want to know whether he and his family have fully disclosed information on assets and accounts in their names after freezing orders were imposed by the court last July.

Mr Quinn Jnr said although he was deputy general director of finance for one of three Russia-based Quinn companies – Logistica – he did not have their accounts, because they were in Russian.

Asked by Judge Peter Kelly how he could manage the company if he was “bamboozled” by the accounts, Mr Quinn Jnr said he managed tenant issues indirectly through colleagues, and not financial matters.

He said IBRC knows where the money has gone.

Shane Murphy, barrister for IBRC – formerly Anglo Irish Bank – said it was “wholly implausible” that Mr Quinn Junior did not have documents on the accounts of companies he was involved in.

But Mr Quinn Junior insisted “rightly or wrongly” he did not retain every document he ever had, including one of the most important documents he ever signed in his life – giving away the Quinn Group last year.

He said it was not unusual at all to leave important documents with a firm of solicitors.

Mr Quinn Jnr agreed he was paid a salary of 399,308 euro from one of the Quinn companies, while his wife Karen Woods was paid 320,297 euro.

He had worked long hours, and did a lot of travelling for his salary, and firmly did not believe he had to disclose how he spent his pay, he said.

Mr Quinn Jnr said the only records he had from his Ocean Bank account in Moscow were text messages, and that he had never communicated with the bank in writing and could only remember being in the bank once.

Despite being a general director of Logistica at one time, he said he would not have received documents in relation to rents paid to the company.

An organisational chart which showed him at the helm of the company was incorrect, he told the court.

Evidence showed Mr Quinn Jnr and others in the Quinn clan were paid up to 10 times the salaries of Russian employees.

Although he issued some of the employment contracts to his family, he said he had no records of what anyone did.

“I don’t believe that there is any documentation outlining the roles that these individuals were meant to do,” he said.

“However, they were meant to come in, and they were meant to get stuck in, they were meant to help out.”

Mr Quinn Jnr said the injunction last year changed that.

Mr Murphy said it was wholly implausible that money was paid to Mr Quinn Jnr and his siblings without some indication of how it was spent or supplied.

But Mr Quinn Jnr insisted he had handed over all documents that were in his possession, power or procurement.