Hearing in Boston on Anglo request to question Drumm

A HEARING is to be held next month in Boston on an application from Anglo Irish Bank that it be allowed to question its former chief executive, David Drumm.

Anglo has asked the bankruptcy court for the district of Massachusetts to allow it to question Mr Drumm at the offices of its Boston lawyers in relation to his application for bankruptcy.

It also said it should be allowed to get access to certain documents. In support of its claim, the bank said it was Mr Drumm’s largest creditor, being owed €8.5 million.

Among the matters about which it wants to question its former employee is his residency status in the US and what investments he has made to justify his E2 visa. E2 visas are usually given to persons who are making substantial investments in the US and are going to run businesses there.

In his filings, Mr Drumm says he has been a manager of a Boston business for the past 18 months and gave his gross income as $9,000 a month.

More recently he has made a filing to the court in which he argued that the court should not grant the bank’s request. He says the bank is being motivated by the political wishes of Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan and it wants to subject him to “the spectacle of a public trial”.

Judge Frank Bailey in Boston has advised the parties concerned that he is going to hold a hearing on the matter next Friday, December 2nd , in Boston.

The hearing is to be “non-evidentiary” in nature. If, in the course of the hearing, the court decides there is a disputed and material issue of fact, it will schedule a further evidentiary hearing, according to a notice posted yesterday.

Mr Drumm has asked the court to reject or constrain the bank’s application that it be allowed to question him extensively about his debts to the bank, the circumstances behind his getting residency in the US and the litigation he is involved in with the bank in Ireland.

That litigation was complicated earlier this year when Mr Drumm, who is now resident in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, filed for bankruptcy in Boston.

Mr Drumm has argued that he made a commercial offer to the bank but that it was rejected for political reasons.