Davy admit involvement in Liechtenstein plan

A document detailing a tax evasion scheme involving Liechtenstein trusts was prepared for the Dublin stockbroking firm, Davy, in 1984 when the owners were preparing for the sale of part of their firm to an American bank.

However a spokesman for the stockbroking firm said yesterday the scheme was not used by the firm and that none of the money paid by the American bank for the Dublin firm, was diverted offshore.

"The beneficiaries of the sale of a 29 per cent equity stake in Davy Stockbrokers to Citicorp in 1985, received the full consideration in Irish pounds and paid all appropriate taxation on the proceeds to the Irish Revenue Commissioners," the spokesman said. At the time of the sale the amount paid was reported to be in the region of £5 million.

The document, prepared after an unidentified person travelled to Zurich and interviewed a number of accountants and financial experts there, outlines a highly secretive scheme in which no documentation is to exist in this jurisdiction and instructions are only to be given over the telephone or during meetings held in Switzerland. Also the funds involved were not to be returned to this jurisdiction, save if they were "trickled" back.

Contact with a Swiss-based but Irish chartered accountant who was proposed as a central figure in the scheme, was made with the assistance of the Blackrock based accountancy firm, John Woods & Co. The firm is part of the international affiliation, Moores Rowland, which has member firms worldwide.

A copy of the seven-page document outlining how the scheme would work is understood to have been given to the Moriarty tribunal by an individual who had access to the personal papers of Mr Kyran McLaughlin, one of the partners with Davy Stockbrokers.

The document was one of a number of proposals concerning tax considered by the Davy partners in the run up to the sale to Citicorp.

The Liechtenstein proposal was rejected because what it proposed crossed the line from tax planning to tax evasion, according to one source.

The Moriarty tribunal and Mr Gerry Ryan, the authorised officer who conducted an inquiry into the Ansbacher deposits, are understood to have received another document from Mr McLaughlin's files, this time in relation to the Ansbacher deposits.

In an affidavit to the High Court in September a senior civil servant with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mr Paul Appleby, said the Ansbacher deposits was a "systematic scheme to facilitate tax evasion by Irish residents" using discretionary trusts in the Cayman Islands.

He said a document entitled "A note to John Furze", "which was apparently prepared in 1983 by a senior member of the financial services community in Dublin following discussions with Mr Furze" is consistent with this view.

The document notes that: "In practice clients do not like committing instructions to the trustees to paper and therefore it is quite usual that instructions would be given by phone." Another section of the note is headed: "Towards minimising the footprints".

Mr McLaughlin is understood to have been interviewed by the Moriarty tribunal's legal team on Friday about this note, and to have told them he was not its author.

It is understood he told the lawyers that the Cayman Islands banker who was involved with the Ansbacher deposits, the late Mr John Furze, met him in Dublin in 1983 to outline the scheme.

The document referred to in the affidavit was given to him by Mr Furze, Mr McLaughlin is understood to have told the lawyers, and he filed it away. At the time Mr Furze was looking for wealthy Irish residents who might be interested in placing funds in the deposits.

However neither he nor Davy Stockbrokers, as advisers to wealthy clients, had anything to do with the scheme, Mr McLaughlin is understood to have said. Sources said the note, which runs to more than 30 pages, has the appearance of having been written by some Ireland-based individual.

Sections of the note are seemingly made up of questions from that individual, which are then answered by Mr Furze. However there is nothing on the note to identify its author.

The Revenue officials investigating the Ansbacher deposits are in possession of the document concerning the Liechtenstein proposal and an investigation into the matter is being carried out.