The former investment adviser Tony Taylor will seek to have his criminal conviction for fraud overturned if a civil action against him is withdrawn,according to sources close to the case.

The disgraced former head of Taylor Asset Management (TAM) was convicted of fraud in 2001 and given a five-year sentence. The liquidator of TAM, Mr Paddy McSwiney, is due to begin a civil action on December 9th, seeking to have Taylor made personally liable for outstanding debts to creditors arising from the collapse of the TAM group.

However, the liquidator is now expected to tell the court he does not wish to proceed with the case.

One source said this is because Mr McSwiney has been advised he does not have a sustainable complaint against Taylor. The case against Taylor has been pending for a number of years.

One source close to the case said the civil action against Taylor cannot go ahead because there are no creditors coming forward to give evidence.

Furthermore, the liquidator may have been told that, for legal reasons to do with the nature of the case, Taylor was not in fact acting in the type of role required for his conviction in the civil courts. The nature of the relationship Taylor had with his clients would have a bearing on the case,according to the source.

Taylor was released from prison in May of last year. He had spent some time in prison in England prior to his extradition to the Republic, and was held on remand up to his trial. This time was taken into account after he was sentenced in October 2001.

Taylor's guilty plea came as a surprise as the courts and the prosecution were preparing for a lengthy trial with a large number of witnesses. Taylor pleaded guilty to a number of charges involving fraud and one of the challenges which will be facing him now if he goes to the Court of Criminal Appeal will be to explain how he came to plead guilty to a crime he would be saying he should never have been convicted of in the first place.

A case being taken against Taylor's wife, Shirley, is also expected to be withdrawn by Mr McSwiney when the case comes before the High Court in the next few weeks. She was a director of TAM but it is understood Mr McSwiney has accepted that she was not personally involved in the issues at the heart of the case he was taking.

An interesting aspect of the scenario now unfolding is that, if Mr McSwiney's case against Taylor is withdrawn, Taylor will have a criminal conviction for something with which it was decided not to proceed in the civil courts.

The criminal courts have a higher burden of proof than the civil courts.

Taylor was formerly a high-profile investment adviser in Dublin where he had offices on Clyde Road. He and his wife had a house on Ailesbury Road which,following their disappearance in 1996, was sold by National Irish Bank. Some of the proceeds from this sale are still frozen in a bank account pending the outcome of the case filed by Mr McSwiney.

When the TAM group collapsed in 1996 it emerged that some of Taylor's clients' money was held outside the books of the investment firm. It was these funds which became central to a number of charges against Taylor.

Neither Mr McSwiney nor Mr Taylor could be contacted for comment yesterday.