Market rife with illegal practices, says broker

Interview:   These days home for Tony Taylor is a small modern apartment in northside Dublin where conversation can be interrupted by the noise of passing trains.

During the course of a lengthy interview, the former investment broker sometimes refers to the period "since I got out", the reference to serving time in prison striking a jarring note in a conversation dominated by talk of investments, banks, clients and what it means to be a fiduciary.

Taylor's claim that he should not have been convicted of the fraud for which he was sentenced comes as a surprise given that he was brought back from England to face charges and pleaded guilty. His argument is based on technical points and includes a general scenario that involves him being immersed in murky activities.

"I'm not going to come out of this looking very good," he says, as if the point needed to be made.

During the course of the interview he reveals details of some deals his group, Taylor Asset Management (TAM) was involved in. They involve "tax sensitive money" lodged in bogus non-resident accounts being moved to offshore accounts in the Isle of Man and Jersey.

He can show names and dates and account numbers. People, he said, would put pressure on him to get involved in sensitive arrangements, and he was in danger of losing them as clients if he did not comply.

Taylor had a high profile within the investment community in the 1990s. Through his involvement with the Irish Brokers' Association he was involved in advising the then government when it was drafting the 1995 Investment Intermediaries Act. This is the Act under which a year later an officer was appointed to investigate TAM.

The picture painted by him of the Irish investment world in the mid-1990s is of one shot through with illegality. He says that following the 1987 stock market crash, a lot of people started cashing in life policies even though it involved accepting losses that, for reasons to do with actuaries' estimates, were greater than the loss from the collapse of the market.

Taylor says it didn't make sense to him until he discovered that people were being enticed by banks into opening bogus non-resident accounts. Interest rates were high and here was a guaranteed, untaxed return. He began finding it difficult to compete.

A meeting was set up with a government minister, he says, and Taylor went along to complain about the banks illegal practices.

At the time his companies were being placed in liquidation, it was stated that client monies amounting to £1.55 million, were unaccounted for. Taylor refuses to discuss in detail what happened to the money. "It's a great story but I can't tell it yet."

He says the money was given to him for specified periods of time but the clients "foreclosed" on the deal early. This interfered with the "exit mechanisms" that he had planned. He says he does not know what happened to the money but he has given a commitment to the liquidator to the TAM group, Mr Paddy McSwiney, that he doesn't have access to any hidden assets. He points out that he was granted legal aid for his criminal hearings. He laughs at the idea that he might have money hidden away in some offshore account.

In court in October 2001 his counsel, Mr Paul McDermott SC, said Taylor had used client funds to try to rescue his business when he'd found it was in difficulty, and had not used the funds for personal expenditure. The 1996 collapse of his business came about after complaints were made to the Investment Brokers Association. Events unfolded rapidly and within months the group was in liquidation and Taylor's whereabouts were unknown.

The client creditors to TAM appear to have withdrawn. A source other than Taylor believes some were paid off by US investment group Fidelity, for whom TAM acted as agent. Others had money invested with TAM that had not been declared to the Revenue. A third group, according to the source, did not pursue the liquidator because they knew he would have nothing to disburse.