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Roundup-Where did NAMA details go?

Tuesday, October 09 08:13:42

Former NAMA executive Enda Farrell has given the High Court details of the people to whom he sent highly confidential agency data he allegedly misappropriated from the agency. The "dishonest conduct" of Mr Farrell and his wife, Alice Kramer, of Knockudder, Dunboyne, Co Meath, to date may constitute a criminal offence under the Nama Act 2009, the agency claims. In documents supplied to the court, Nama alleges, from evidence to date, it appeared at least some of the information about loans under their control and the location and ownership of properties held by the agency as security for those loans was unlawfully deployed in the commercial property marketplace.

It is still considering a claim for damages against Mr Farrell over his passing of the information on to his wife and others. In an affidavit, Mr Farrell, a property portfolio analyst with the agency until his resignation last February, said he forwarded certain listed items to people outside the employment of Nama. He said he had forwarded 29 emails to his wife at her work email between October 16th, 2011, and February 24th and asked her to forward those to her personal email account at Yahoo, which she did. It was claimed by the agency the emails were sent to Mr Farrell's wife's corporate email address to avoid the internal system monitoring mail within the National Treasury Management Agency and facilitate the "illicit removal and storage" of confidential information outside the agency.

Mr Farrell said he also forwarded emails of listed items to named persons in a Canadian asset management company and the owner of a real estate investment management business based in London. After he terminated his employment with Nama, he had worked with an English investment management company, Forum Partners, as a consultant and was retained in Dublin on a six-month contract, he said. The Irish Times

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Former billionaire Sean Quinn has cash of E300, E11,171 in the bank and a pension bond with Irish Life worth E159,951, according to a draft statement of affairs for the Irish Bankruptcy Assignee, Chris Lehane. He owns a 2004 Mercedes Benz S600 worth E6,000, has an interest in forestry land in Co Fermanagh with a minimal value, and similar land in Co Fermanagh in which his interest is worth E25,000. Mr Quinn was at one stage considered Ireland's richest businessman, with his Quinn Group given a value of up to E5 billion. He transferred the shares in the group to his five adult children 10 years ago. The group has since been seized by Anglo Irish Bank, which is now part of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation. The State-owned bank claims the Quinn family owes it E2.8 billion, a claim that is disputed by the family.

In his statement of affairs, Mr Quinn said he had disputed debts with Anglo Irish Bank arising from a guarantee. He also said that his personal papers, previous employment details, historical tax records and legal papers were in his office in the Quinn Group. The Irish Times

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The Government will appoint an adviser to handle the E400m to E600m sale of the new National Lottery licence within weeks. In response to a question a spokeswoman for Brendan Howlin's Department of Public Expenditure and Reform said it expected to be in a position to appoint advisers by the middle of this month. The timing is later than expected when a tender for the work was published in July. It means the process to sell the lottery licence itself is unlikely to begin before the end of October, as initially scheduled. Mr Howlin formally announced plans to auction the rights to run the National Lottery back in May. In August nine firms applied for the contract to act as external advisers on the lottery tendering process.

The winning tender will advise on the best way to structure a competitive bidding process for the licence, as well as helping to evaluate bids received. Money raised has been earmarked for development of the National Children's Hospital, which was given the greenlight to go ahead on a site at Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown, Dublin. The money will be raised through the sale of a 20-year licence to run the lottery games in exchange for an upfront fee hoped to be up to E600m. Draft heads of a bill establishing a legal framework for the new licence went to the Cabinet in July. The auction process cannot get under way without the legislation. The Irish Independent

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Eurozone finance ministers formally cleared the last hurdles to the long-awaited E500bn rescue fund yesterday but failed to decide whether the fund could be used to pay the "legacy debts" of Irish and Spanish banks. Klaus Regling, the managing director of the new fund and the author of a report on Ireland's banking crash, said the question of "legacy assets" had not been discussed in "any European body" and seemed to suggest the issue may not be resolved for months.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan, meanwhile, admitted that there was now little chance of the country getting some kind of early agreement to remove some of the debt burden stemming from the E64bn bailout of the country's banks. Speaking ahead of a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Luxembourg, Mr Noonan said that while he would like a deal before December's Budget, he was already focused on having an agreement in place before the next E3.1bn is due to be paid on the promissory note used to pay for the Anglo Irish Bank bailout in March. The Irish Independent

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Shares in Richard Barrett and Johnny Ronan's Chinese property venture have almost halved in value over the past year while the battle to keep their Irish group in business raged through the courts here. That battle will end today with the appointment of Michael McAteer and Paul McCann of Grant Thornton as joint liquidators to the Treasury Holdings Group. However, the sharp decline in the value of the Asian investments means today's liquidation of their main Irish business, Treasury Holdings, is not the only headache for the former billionaire property players.

Singapore-listed Treasury China Trust (TCT) is an independently owned, listed property investment vehicle set up by the Treasury team to tap into the booming Chinese property market. The firm controls Chinese property assets valued at 13.3bn Chinese Yuan, or around E1.6bn. The Chinese property investment has been the major focus for Mr Barrett in particular since the bottom fell out of the property market here in 2007. The Irish Independent