Denis O'Brien seeks to halt release of 'extraordinary' dossier

Billionaire businessman Denis O’Brien has told the High Court a memory stick supplied anonymously to him contained an "extraordinary" dossier of documents mostly unfavourable to his interests and discloses an alleged concerted and unlawful conspiracy to damage him personally and commercially.

Mr O’Brien alleges a forensic examination of the dossier by a firm, Epsion, indicates Dublin-based public relations firm Red Flag Consulting Ltd, whose executives include Gavin O'Reilly, former CEO of Independent News & Media and former senior exceutive with INM, Karl Brophy, are linked to the alleged conspiracy.

He believes a client of Red Flag Consulting is behind the alleged conspiracy and wants to establish the identity of any such client. Mr O'Brien believes the dossier was also designed to be given to people who can avail of parliamentary privilege, the court heard.

Mr O'Brien (pictured) is claiming damages for alleged defamation and conspiracy. On Tuesday, his lawyers obtained an interim High Court order preventing Red Flag Consulting interfering with or removing computer material and other IT items from its offices. It was also ordered nothing could be reported until the matter came back before the court today, to allow the proceedings be served.

Applying for the order on Tuesday on an ex-parte (only one side represented) basis, Michael Cush SC, for Mr O'Brien, said the defamatory material was in a dossier including eight Microsoft Office documents on a memory stick provided anonymously to Mr O'Brien following an investigation which he ordered due to his belief of a concerted campaign against him.

The material was clearly defamatory and dealt with matters including Mr O'Brien's involvement with the Moriarty Tribunal, his tax status as a resident in Portugal, the recent initial public offering of shares in Mr O'Brien's Digicel company and other allegations, counsel said.

A court order pemitting access to the company's IT system would enable his side to identify contributors and receivers to the material in question, he said. While Red Flag involved "people with whom my client had previous dealings", there was clearly a client involved here as it is a PR firm, counsel said.

The president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns said he was not inclined to grant the "quite draconian" order allowing lawyers and investigators enter the Red Flag offices to take control of the computers. Such an order might seem unduly heavy-handed and could be perceived as interfering with the rights of the defendants, he said.

Mr O'Brien's action is against the Red Flag firm and five persons involved with it. They are Gavin O'Reilly and Karl Brophy; Red Flag chairman, Seamus Conboy; account manager Brid Murphy and account executive Kevin Hiney.

The High Court today continued the interim orders for preservation of documents contained in the dossier.

These include PDF documents entitled "Who is Denis O'Brien?" and "The Moriarty Tribunal Explainer", along with many Irish and international media articles about the businessman which he contends are mostly unfavourable to him. The international media articles include stories from the Washington Examiner, Boston Haitian Reporter, Bloomberg, Antigua Observer, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal,

The dossier also contains a transcript of a Dáil debate relating to the Siteserv transaction.

During Tuesday's proceedings, Mr Cush said none of the articles in the "extraordinary" dossier are "complimentary" to Mr O'Brien and it was clearly put together to brief against his interests.

Mr Cush also said Karl Brophy was a former journalist with the Irish Mirror who wrote an article in 1998 which ultimately led to Mr O'Brien getting €750,000 damages. Mr Brophy later joined INM and blamed Mr O'Brien for his departure from that company, he said.

There was "a very public prior history" between Gavin O'Reilly and the plaintiff, Mr Cush added. Mr O'Reilly's departure from INM was widely said to coincide with Mr O'Brien taking a very significant shareholding in that company.

Today, Mr Cush said it seemed there was no point pursuing his application for an order searching the defendants' systems as they were on notice of the application and he wanted to change his application to seek an order for inspection of documents.

Mr Cush said his core allegation is the defendants have been involved in authoring documents as part of the conspiracy. There were a number of "unknowns" concerning who commissioned the defendants to put together the material.

His side was anxious the matter be heard speedily as compliance with the preserving order rested on the good faith of the defendants and his client had serious concerns in that regard.

All the defendants except Mr O'Reilly were represented by Michael Collins SC who said he needed time to prepare. He had just come into the case and, while it was unclear exactly what it was about and what was being sought, he anticipated he would get instructions to fully defend it. He also expected he would be representing Mr O'Reilly, who was at the moment in the US.

Mr Collins said the matter was not urgent and there was an "unfounded and unwarranted" suggestion his clients would breach a court order. It was "totally unreal" to suggest his side could put in a replying affidavit in days.

Mr O’Brien had had IT consultants prepare a report and his side needed to see what material was being referred to. They might need to consult with gardaí and take proper instructions before deciding on the proper response, he added.

Mr Justice Colm MacEochaidh has returned the matter for mention on Friday.