Confidential messages received on here suggest that the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation liquidation wasn’t a very well-kept secret and prior to the announcement of the bank’s liquidation on 6th February 2013, there may have been some abuse of inside knowledge in the run-up to the liquidation announcement with some creditors getting their bills paid early.
Who knows?
This week in the Dail, the Sinn Fein finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan to detail payments of over €1m that were made by IBRC in the immediate run-up and aftermath of the liquidation announcement. As is becoming par for the course, Minister Noonan refused to provide any meaningful answer and fell back upon his old reliable “it’s commercially sensitive”.
So, it is “commercially sensitive” if a bank which we 100% own has made large payments around its “surprise” liquidation. It’s a good job we have such complete trust in politicians and bankers…
The full parliamentary question and response are here.
Deputy Pearse Doherty: To ask the Minister for Finance if he will provide a schedule of approved payments where the payment was for a sum in excess of €1 million made by Irish bank Resolution Corporation for the seven days prior to 4.30 p.m. on 6 February 2013 and to provide a similar schedule for payments made in the seven days from 4.30 p.m. on 6 February 2013.
Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan: The payments in excess of €1m made by IBRC for the seven days prior and post the liquidation are commercially sensitive matters and therefore I cannot provide such information. It is normal course of practise that payments made by IBRC and the Special Liquidator are conducted under appropriate confidentiality constraints in order to protect the interests of all parties.
UPDATE: 22nd February, 2013. Tom Lyons in last weekend’s Sunday Independent claims that €40m was given by IBRC to Topaz, the oil distribution company, on the day that it was liquidated by the Government. Topaz, says the Sindo, is part-owned by Denis O’Brien.
Reblogged this on Machholz's Blog and commented:
One way or another, the people of Ireland will have their day against these Gangsters and their insider pals.
Does this mean that the €40 million funding needs of one borrower were preferred to the debts owed to creditors on the day of the liquidation?
If I were an unsecured creditor for services rendered, I would not be at all happy with that sequence of events.
@Joseph, the words used by Tom Lyons are
“Topaz, the country’s biggest operator of forecourts, required a €40m working capital line to be advanced urgently on the day that its principal banker, IBRC, was placed into liquidation.
The company secured its new credit line from the bank’s liquidator KPMG, which in turn got if from Bank of Ireland.”
We don’t have the full facts but it reminds me of the sale of Anglo’s Austrian bank the day after FitzPatrick resigned as Anglo’s chairman notwithstanding that it held over €600 million in deposits at a time Anglo was experiencing a liquidity crisis and even lent the buyer (a large Austrian bank, no less) €24 million of the €141 million sale price.
Kathleen Barrington’s piece about this is behind the SBP paywall at http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2010/09/12/story51585.asp
It is possible that the concept of “Fraudlent Preference” could come into play but the liquidator would have to bring the case and with little hard evidence, all we can do is ask the question.
@ Brian F,surely you not suggesting beguilement with the Sale of Anglo’s off-shore private bank, that may have had private banking a/c’s for Seanies ‘clients’? Lending a Bank funds to buy your private bank from you when you are in dire need of deposits makes sound financial sense… somewhere.
Anglo in Austria certainly had form as regards dodgy clients – see http://www.thejournal.ie/anglos-austrian-subsidiary-held-cash-laundered-by-italian-mafiosi-23312-Sep2010/
Ah yes the old fastweb thingy… (Russia, US, Airbases, NATO, Religious Wars,, Mafia, Drugs, Money Laundering…) a good read “Kyrgyzstan, my part in its downfall’ by Seanie.
http://bitterqueen.typepad.com/friends_of_ours/fastweb-spa/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9366573/Retired-judge-among-Britons-facing-extradition-to-Italy-on-Mafia-money-laundering-charges.html
http://www.italianinsider.it/?q=node/208
http://enews.fergananews.com/news.php?id=2384&mode=snews
http://www.rumafia.com/person.php?id=44
http://japanfocus.org/-peter_dale-scott/3384
The laundered €1.8 bn was split between three banks including Anglo up till 2007. If Anglo held a third of this, the amount would have been equivalent to Anglo’s total deposit base (€600 m) when sold in 2008 to Valartis Bank. Did no one notice or care?
The idea of a carousel is that the money doesn’t stop moving until it is somewhere safe. Of course there are different levels of safe, safe from European Tax authorities V safe from political ‘intrigue’ in the Caucuses.
[...] in the Dail about rumours that IBRC made a series of payments immediately before it was liquidated Noonan refuses to provide details of large payments made by IBRC immediately before its liquidation … Sign in or Register Now to [...]