Inside the world of business

Bizarre twist in Quinn story

THE SEÁN Quinn story has the appearance of a saga that is going to get increasingly bizarre before it reaches its denouement.

Readers with access to the internet might want to take a look at the website univermagukraina.com. When you log on you hear thunder and the screen, which has a picture of low cloud over what must be Kiev, flashes with lightning. When you click on a Union Jack button you get an English version of the site (and more thunder and lightning). “Under Attack!” screams red lettering over an open letter to the Ukrainian prime minister written by, of all people, a former partner with KPMG in Dublin, Robert Dix.

Dix is a director recently appointed to a former Quinn family company based in Sweden, and the website is part of the battle by the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, formerly Anglo Irish Bank, against the Quinn family to get control of some valuable assets the bank says were pledged as collateral against Quinn loans.

Odd and complex legal manoeuvres in Ukraine, Russia, Cyprus and no doubt other locations form part of this multimillion struggle between the State bank and the Quinns over properties in eastern Europe.

It is a long way from the picture painted in Co Fermanagh newspaper the Impartial Reporter this week, when Quinn said he was “a bit of a home bird”, going to the local pub and walking around the mountains. He must take some interesting phone calls while doing so.

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