Quinn family action on €2.34bn loans adjourned again, no new trial date fixed

The action by businessman Sean Quinn family's aimed at avoiding liability for loans of €2.34 billion has been adjourned to at least next summer at the Commercial Court with no new trial date fixed.

Mr Justice Robert Haughton today granted a fourth application by the DPP to lift a trial date for the proceedings. The latest date for the hearing of the case, initiated in 2011, was next January but it has now been adjourned with no new trial date.

The judge refused an application by State-owned IBRC to have the Quinns’ action open in December rather than the fixed date of January 12th 2016 and he also vacated that January date.

He did so after accepting arguments by the DPP there was a “real risk” the Quinns’ case could prejudice forthcoming criminal proceedings against various Anglo exceutives and officials listed for January 2016 and the May 2016 criminal trial of former Anglo chairman Sean FitzPatrick.

Given the history of adjournments of this case, the fact other criminal proceedings against two Anglo former executives are due for hearing in early 2017 and the possibility of criminal proceedings against former Anglo chief executive David Drumm, he would not fix a new trial date, the judge said.

He was adjourning the Quinns case until after the action against Mr FitzPatrick had concluded and would list the Quinns’ case for mention only next April, he said.

DPP opposition

The IBRC application for a December 2015 trial was strongly opposed by the DPP who expressed concern matters in the Quinns’ action could prejudice the January 2016 criminal trial of some former Anglo officials and employees and the May 2016 trial of Mr FitzPatrick. Concern was also expressed about possible prejudice to another criminal trial in 2017 of other Anglo officials and a possible criminal trial of Mr Drumm if he is extradited from the US to Ireland.

Lawyers for the Quinns said they too wanted their case heard as soon as possible but without any reporting restrictions.

The Quinns initiated their action in 2011 and four different trial dates have now all been vacated, all at the application of the DPP. The trial of separate proceedings by IBRC against various members of the family and various companies alleging a conspiracy to move assets beyond the reach of the bank also remains deferred until the family’s case is heard.

Before Mr Justcie Haughton gave his judgment, Paul Anthony McDermott SC, for the DPP, asked that the judgment not be reported for reasons linked to the forthcoming criminal proceedings.

The judge refused to ban reporting of his decision and said, in preparing his ruling, he had borne in mind the DPP’s concerns about possible prejudice to the criminal proceedings.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Haughton said he had concluded, if the family’s action proceeded before the trial of Mr Fitzpatrick, there was a real risk of prejudice both to the criminal trials fixed for January and May 2016.

He did not believe that risk could not be ameliorated by measures such as reporting restrtictions and he also considered such restrictions would be undesirable, ineffective and perhaps impossible, the judge said.

The Constitution requires justice be administered in public and the people of the state are entitled to fair and accurate reports of proceedings, he noted.

Clear public interest

Unlike many public law cases, there was a “clear public interest” in this case that argued against reporting restrictions, he said. The Quinns also wished to have their case heard in public in the normal way and opposed reporting restrictions.

The Quinns’ case was scheduled to run for months and, if it opened in December or January, it could end up running alongside the criminal proceedings due to open in January and/or Mr FitzPatrick’s trial, the judge said.

For all those reasons, he was deferring this trial until after the trial of Mr FitzPatrick has concluded, the judge said. He would not fix a new trial date given the history of adjournments so far and the future criminal proceedings referred to.

Last July, the Quinns and IBRC agreed to mediation of their dispute but no details concerning the progress of mediation have been provided to the court. Preparations for the hearing of the action by Mrs Patricia Quinn and her five adult children have continued alongside the mediation.