An oil company chief executive accused of rigging a £7.2 million sterling (€11.6 million) share issue has been described as a victim, not the villain, of the operation. Investors were promised they would benefit from drilling natural gas in Louisiana, 30 miles south of New Orleans.
Mr John O'Brien (45), former chief executive of Alliance Resources, is accused of using deception to ensure the April 1995 rights issue succeeded. But at London's Southwark Crown Court on Friday it was claimed the Irishman had been deceived along with company colleagues, professional advisers and investors. An illicit game of make-believe included claims that Alliance's flagship well was in production. It is also alleged that Mr O'Brien ordered officers in the US to show brokers - crossing the Atlantic to verify the company's listing particulars - the wrong site.
Instead of seeing the well known as Valentine 14, abandoned in a muddy field, advisers were shown a successful well. Mr William Clegg QC accused Alliance company secretary Mr Nicholas Grey of being behind the subterfuge.
"It makes no sense at all for O'Brien to tell the operations ma nager to hoodwink the brokers, when he is telling their bosses in London that the well is not in production," Mr Clegg told the jury. "You could only get away with it if you told everybody the same story: you don't tell half the people one thing, and half the other." Mr Clegg said whether guilty or innocent, Mr O'Brien would have to be "extremely stupid" to try such a stunt. He said someone else must have been giving the orders, "someone who was not an oilman".
Mr Clegg continued: "Because anyone in the industry would know if you are saying it is in production, the brokers would want to see flow rates and income streams." Therefore, he said, as an oilman, Mr O'Brien would realise he could not get away with such a move.
"We say here again we have the hand of Nick Grey, someone who must have thought that it would help the flotation to have the brokers deceived in America." Mr O'Brien, of Midleton, Co Cork, denies five charges of forgery, two offences of false accounting, and two offences under the Financial Services Act. The trial continues.
