Frank Cushnahan had ‘litany of conflicts of interest’

Nama's former Northern Ireland advisor Frank Cushnahan had a "litany of conflicts of interest", according to the chairman of the Stormont inquiry into the sale of the Nama portfolio in the North.

Daithí McKay said evidence from Richard Bullick, a DUP special adviser to the First Minister, revealed "quite fascinating stuff" that was both "deeply concerning" and also "embarrassing for Nama".

Mr Bullick told the Stormont Finance Committee that he had been intensively involved in Nama issues from September 2013 to April 2014.

He described how his key role had been as the link between Frank Cushnahan, Ian Coulter, the former managing director of Belfast law firm Tughans and the North's First Minister Peter Robinson.

In his opinion Mr Bullick said both Mr Cushnahan and Mr Coulter had always been motivated by the best interests of the Northern Ireland economy and he had never considered there would be any issue of impropriety in that at all.

He said just as a politician would have wanted to see the economy moving and could have benefitted from electoral support from that, he “assumed if the economy was moving, those working in the economy would benefit”.

Fees

Mr Bullick said he also “never assumed there would be fees” involved and that the benefit for both men would come as a result of the benefits it would deliver for “their clients getting freed up from Nama”.

He said that “greater economic activity” in the North would in turn also provide business opportunities for Mr Coulter and Mr Cushnahan.

When asked by the inquiry chair, Mr McKay, if it was fair to say that he thought Mr Cushnahan and Mr Coulter were the “good guys trying to get the economy moving”, Mr Bullick said yes.

He said until recently he had not been aware of any "fixer fees" in relation to the sale of the Nama portfolio to the American group Cerberus for £1.2 billion last year.

Cerberus has previously confirmed it hired US legal firm, Brown Rudnick to advise it on the Nama transaction on a “success fee only basis”.

Brown Rudnick has stated that it, in turn, had a deal to share this success fee with Tughans.

But Cerberus has also said that it had assurances that no fees would be paid to any current or former Nama advisers.

Economy

The DUP special adviser also told Stormont politicians that overall he believed the Nama deal had been good for the Northern Ireland economy as a whole.

Mr Bullick said the construction industry had benefitted and that the North was better off today than it would have been if the deal had not taken place.

The Stormont inquiry also heard from Dr Dara O’Hagan, Sinn Féin former special adviser to the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

Dr O'Hagan said she had come before the inquiry to explain in detail why the North's Deputy First Minister had not seen a draft memorandum of understanding (MOU) relating to Pimco, another US firm interested in purchasing the Nama loans and the agency.

She confirmed that she had received the email containing the MOU but had not passed it on to Mr McGuinness because the MOU had not been “acceptable to Nama” and the issue had not proceeded any further.

If it had been, Dr O’Hagan said the MOU would have been the subject of “significant scrutiny” and further investigation and this material would then have been presented to Mr McGuinness.

Ultimately Dr O’Hagan said “it was not the statutory responsibility of OFMDFM to deal with Nama or Pimco or any of that”.

She said that responsibility lay with the Department of Finance.

“To be quite honest with you, we have a pile of work ourselves, without straying into work that is not our responsibility,” she told the committee.

Neither Mr Cushnahan or Mr Coulter have appeared at the Stormont inquiry to date but in separate statements Mr Cushnahan has said he “firmly denies any wrongdoing and will fully co-operate with any police investigation” while Mr Coulter said that through Tughans he was “formally engaged to provide the required local counsel to Brown Rudnick. This was a commercial arrangement with Brown Rudnick, for which fees were discussed and agreed.” Mr Coulter has also stated that “no politician, nor any relative of any politician in Northern Ireland, was ever to receive any monies in any way as part of this deal.”