Jeffrey Leo, the American financier, has filed legal proceedings in Dublin against Allan Beechinor, the founder of failed tech company Altada, according to court records.
The proceedings were filed in the High Court last Friday. As well as Mr Beechinor, radio and podcast host Keith Walsh has been included as a defendant in the case. Neither defendant has any legal representation on record.
Court records show that so far Mr Leo has filed a plenary summons in the case, which is used to commence a legal action in a dispute between two parties. That will likely be followed by an exchange of more detailed pleadings between the sides.
Mr Leo is represented by Horwich Farrelly Ireland, the Irish arm of a UK law firm, which declined to comment when contacted by The Irish Times. Mr Beechinor did not respond to a request for comment.
Posts published on social media site X, formerly Twitter, show correspondence written by lawyers from Horwich Farrelly complaining about allegedly defamatory statements made by Mr Beechinor about Mr Leo on a newly created podcast platform called Moth News.
The allegedly defamatory statements do not appear to relate to Altada Technology Solutions, the Cork-based AI company which was founded by Mr Beechinor and his wife, Niamh Parker, and in which Mr Leo was also involved.
Before its collapse, Altada had been projected to achieve a $1 billion valuation after it raised $11.5 million in a funding round in September 2021, led by Rocktop Partners along with Elkstone Partners and Enterprise Ireland. The company soon after got into difficulty and was placed into examinership and later into liquidation.
During that process Mr Leo reportedly made a bid to buy the business out of liquidation through a company called Datech, though the deal never materialised. Soon after that, Altada’s assets were later sold to Cometgaze, a company controlled by Irish entrepreneur Eoin Goulding. That business has since been renamed Pinpoint AI.
Altada Technology Solutions, meanwhile, is being liquidated by John Healy of Kirby Healy Chartered Accountants, who in February 2023 told the High Court that the company’s deficit to its creditors at the end of last year may “substantially exceed” €10 million.
He said the overall losses at the company, including the €11.5 million Altada raised in a funding round in September 2021, might be in excess of €20 million.
Mr Healy said in his affidavit that Altada’s directors Mr Beechinor and Ms Parker had “perpetrated a fraud” on the company in relation to a decision to draw down a €500,000 loan in September 2022.
Altada is also the subject of an ongoing Garda investigation by detectives attached to the Corporate Enforcement Authority (CEA), the State’s corporate crime watchdog.
Earlier this year, Mr Healy, the liquidator, told a creditors meeting he was involved in “ongoing engagement” with the CEA over allegations of company law and fraud offences. He said he had written to the directors of the company, including Mr Beechinor and Ms Parker, over “matters of grave concern” he had identified in his investigation.
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