A report by inspectors appointed to investigate the governance scandal in the former Independent News & Media (INM) is believed to have been completed and is expected to be put before the High Court within days.
The report, prepared following a six-year investigation, could be put before the High Court as early as next week.
The inspectors earlier this year circulated confidential draft findings to individuals against whom any adverse findings may be made, seeking any observations they may have on those findings. It is understood the inspectors have finalised their report and are preparing to put it before the High Court.
Senior counsel Seán Gillane SC and UK solicitor Richard Fleck were appointed by then High Court president, Mr Justice Peter Kelly, in 2018 to carry out the inspection in the wake of an unlawful breach of company data when businessman Denis O’Brien was the main shareholder in INM.
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The application for inspectors was made by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, now known as the Corporate Enforcement Agency.
The data breach raised serious questions over the conduct of then INM chairman Leslie Buckley, who represented Mr O’Brien’s interests in the company. Mr Buckley has always denied any wrongdoing.
In 2021 the High Court refused an application by Mr Buckley to have the inspectors removed. Mr Justice Garrett Simons rejected the assertion that draft statements from the inspectors raised the issue of objective bias.
INM, now known as Mediahuis Ireland, has consistently refrained from commenting on the investigation, pointing out it is under a duty of confidentiality throughout the statutory process.
Mr O’Brien became the dominant INM shareholder after wresting control of the business from the late Sir Anthony O’Reilly. Mr O’Brien incurred a loss of more than €400 million when selling his INM shares to Mediahuis of Belgium in 2019.
When appointing the inspectors in September 2018, Mr Justice Kelly expressed concern over conduct “suggestive of an unlawful purpose” to benefit Mr O’Brien.
The court was told that backup computer tapes from INM ended up in the hands of third parties for “data interrogation” relating to 19 named individuals, among them journalists and former company officials, some of whom had come into conflict with Mr O’Brien.
They included two barristers who worked for the Moriarty tribunal during its investigation into the award to Mr O’Brien of the State’s second mobile phone licence in the 1990s.
Mr Justice Kelly said the data interrogation took place “at the direction of Mr Buckley”. The INM data was accessed by parties with links to Mr Buckley and one of Mr O’Brien’s companies paid for the analysis.
In private legal correspondence in 2018, the company itself questioned whether the unlawful interrogation of the tapes was carried out for Mr O’Brien’s benefit.
The inspectors were also asked to examine a plan for INM to buy out Newstalk, a radio station then under Mr O’Brien’s control. The plan was scrapped after INM’s then chief executive, Robert Pitt, complained of pressure from Mr Buckley to pay an inflated price for Newstalk.
Also under investigation was a proposal, later dropped, for INM to pay about €1 million to one of Mr O’Brien’s companies for work “allegedly done” on the sale of shares in APN, an Australian group. Mr Pitt claimed no services were provided.
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