Lawyers for businessman Peter Darragh Quinn today asked the High Court for permission to cease representing him.

Quinn was jailed in his absence last Friday after a judge found he was in contempt of court orders preventing him from putting assets in the Quinn group of companies beyond the reach of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IRBC).

His cousin Seán Quinn jnr, son of bankrupt billionaire Seán Quinn snr, is currently serving a three-month jail sentence for contempt over the same matter.

Today, the IRBC asked Mr Justice Peter Kelly to continue freezing orders on the assets of a number of Mr Quinn snr’s children and relatives and of linked companies. The bank is also asking the court to appoint a receiver to the companies.

Bill Shipsey SC, for the Quinns, said he wanted to indicate to the court that his instructing solicitors, Eversheds, wished to cease representing or “come off record” in relation to Peter Darragh Quinn.

Mr Shipsey said the solicitors had no contact with him since early last Friday and they would be seeking to formally apply to the court, probably later this week, to come off record in relation to him.

There was some difficulty as to where notice of this application should be served on Quinn but Mr Shipsey was seeking to be allowed to do so by ordinary post at an address in Northern Ireland.

Mr Shipsey continues to represent the other individual members of the Quinn family, Sean Quinn’s five children - Aoife, Ciara, Colette, Brenda and Sean jnr - as well as two sons-in-law, Stephen Kelly and Niall McPartland.

In relation to the bank’s application to appoint a receiver over a number of companies based in Belize, Panama, Russia and United Arab Emirates, his clients were consenting to the orders being sought by the bank.

There had been an issue in relation to the powers of the receiver, including the issue of the Quinn passports but it had been agreed the receiver could take their passports, copy them and return them, Mr Shipsey said. He was confident agreement could be reached in relation to the other powers of the receiver.

Mr Justice Peter Kelly was told only one of the nine defendant companies, based in Belize, had been in contact with the court. There was no appearance on behalf of the other eight companies, the court heard.

Opening IBRC’s application today, Paul Gallagher SC, said much of the evidence that emerged during the contempt proceedings against Sean Quinn and his son, and Peter Darragh Quinn, was relevant to the bank’s case that there had been further dissipation of company assets in breach of court orders.

Between April 2011 and February last, contracts of employment had been entered into between Quinn companies and Russian companies “to extract sums of up to €2 million,” Mr Gallagher said.