Anglo verdicts: More cases in the pipeline

The trial of four former Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Life & Permanent executives – Willie McAteer, John Bowe, Denis Casey and Peter Fitzpatrick – on charges connected with a €7.2 billion circular deposit between the two financial institutions in 2008 is just one of a number of criminal cases involving former Anglo directors.

The trial of Mr McAteer and Pat Whelan, another former Anglo Irish Bank executive, over an alleged fraudulent loan of over €8 million is slated to start in January 2017.

Mr McAteer, Anglo's former finance director, is accused of fraudulently obtaining a loan from Anglo to pay off a personal loan with Bank of Ireland in September 2008.

Mr Whelan, a former director of lending at Anglo, is accused of being a party to the same loan.

The Dublin Circuit Criminal Court has heard that Mr McAteer and Mr Whelan intend to plead not guilty to the charges. A date of January 16th, 2017 has been set for the four-week trial.

The DPP had sought a trial for October 2016 but Mr McAteer’s lawyer argued that it was more appropriate, given the necessity for a fade factor connected with other legal proceedings, to start the trial in January 2017.

The judge gave liberty to all parties involved to re-enter the case if any issues arose and it is listed for mention on July 18th.

Sean FitzPatrick

Earlier this month, the trial of former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Sean FitzPatrick on charges of misleading the bank’s auditors was put back to October 4th. It had been due to start this month but it was put back after concerns were raised that the trial would not finish by the end of July, when normal sittings of Dublin Circuit Criminal Court finish for the summer vacation.

Mr FitzPatrick, 66, of Whitshed Road, Greystones, Co Wicklow has pleaded not guilty to 27 offences under the 1990 Companies Act.

These include 21 charges of making a misleading, false or deceptive statement to auditors and six charges of furnishing false information in the years 2002 to 2007.

The trial at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court is due to take between two to three months and will require a specially enlarged jury of 15 members.

David Drumm

David Drumm, who was Anglo's chief executive at the time of the crash, is set to face two trials, one in 2017 and one in 2018, relating to his time as head of the bank.

Mr Drumm (49) is charged with 33 counts under two separate bills concerning alleged offences committed at the now defunct bank.

In April, Judge Terence O’Sullivan at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court ordered that one trial would take place at Easter 2017 while the second would start in January 2018.

Mr Drumm, who returned to Ireland in March after years living in Massachusetts, faces two charges of conspiring to defraud depositors and investors at Anglo by “dishonestly” creating the impression that deposits in 2008 were €7.2 billion larger than they were. He faces one additional charge in relation to the EU transparency directive.

He will stand trial for these offences on April 24th, 2017 and the case is expected to take 12 weeks.

Mr Drumm also faces 16 counts of offering unlawful financial assistance to members of businessman Sean Quinn’s family and 10 other individuals as well as 14 charges of falsifying documents.

These charges will be dealt with at a trial set for January 12th, 2018. This trial is expected to take about two months.

Separately, Mr Drumm is appealing a decision by a US court last November to deny his discharge from bankruptcy on numerous grounds.