Sean Dunne’s bankruptcy drama heats up

Reading the list of names subpoenaed by the trustee in charge of liquidating Sean Dunne’s bankruptcy estate, it seems he is trying to get to the bottom quickly of whether to take up the National Asset Management Agency’s legal action against Dunne.

Yesterday the trustee, hot-shot Connecticut bankruptcy lawyer, and ironically named, Rich Coan, filed papers seeking to examine a Nama representative on May 28th or a date agreed between them.

Nama joins Credit Suisse and People's United Bank, a US lender where Dunne's wife Gayle Killilea banks, on a list of witnesses to be deposed by the trustee.

He also wants to talk to Andy Smyth of project management company Bruce Shaw.

Credit Suisse gave the loan to buy the apartment in Geneva at the centre of Nama’s case against Dunne and Killilea in another court in Connecticut, separate to the court where the Co Carlow developer filed for bankruptcy on Good Friday in March. In yet another case against the couple in New York, Sean Doyle, an Irish builder in the city, claimed Dunne told him he had $6 million personally available to him and he could send $1 million from a bank account in Switzerland to invest in Doyle’s company.

With debts of $942 million and assets Dunne valued at $55 million, the trustee is obviously not wasting any time to find out more about Dunne’s finances and is seeking to question those who will help him decide whether there is any merit in taking up Nama’s case against Dunne in which the agency claimed he fraudulently moved assets to Killilea. The couple have disputed this.

Dunne is due to be questioned at a creditors’ meeting on May 29th.

Natural progression would suggest that Killilea herself will be subject to a court application from the trustee seeking her examination too to see whether Nama’s action should be restarted.

The drama could just be starting.