Solicitor Michael Lynn is facing arrest after failing to appear in court yesterday to answer questions about his property dealings on which he has amassed estimated debts of €80 million.
The arrest threat comes as several banks that provided multimillion euro loans to Mr Lynn are due to meet in private today - outside their legal cases against Mr Lynn - to see if they can try to agree on a sale of the solicitor's properties and if they can divide the proceeds between them to recover their loans.
Mr Lynn is facing a multitude of lawsuits taken by the banks. They are trying to untangle a web of property transactions and loans, and to find out which of them are entitled to first and subsequent payments from the sale of his assets.
Gardaí have been ordered to bring Mr Lynn to the High Court this morning. Mr Lynn did not appear in court yesterday for his cross-examination by the Law Society, scheduled to begin at 11am in a packed courtroom. The solicitor was directed by the President of the High Court, Mr Justice Richard Johnson, to be brought before the court at 2pm, but he failed to appear.
The judge adjourned the case to this morning and said that, if Mr Lynn turned up, he was to be kept in custody until the hearing at 11am.
Mr Lynn drew down multiple mortgages on the same properties from several lenders using solicitors' undertakings, a mechanism used in most residential property transactions that allowed him to borrow without immediately registering a bank's loan charge against a property.
Mr Lynn was due in court yesterday to face two days of cross-examination on six of his property dealings, including his purchase of Glenlion House in Howth, Co Dublin, which he intended to use as his new family home. Mr Lynn took out at least three, possibly four, mortgages on the property - each for a large part of the house's value - within days of each other in April 2007.
When Mr Lynn failed to appear in court yesterday, the judge ordered his arrest and that the order be served at his home in St Alban's Park in Sandymount, Dublin 4; on his wife, who might know his whereabouts; and on his newly appointed solicitors, London firm Merriman White.
The court heard earlier that Mr Lynn "seemed to have jettisoned his lawyers". Merriman White is the third legal firm to represent Mr Lynn. His second team of lawyers stepped down yesterday.
Gardaí went to arrest Mr Lynn at his home yesterday but he is believed to be outside the country.
Counsel for Mr Lynn's wife, Bríd Murphy, told the court yesterday - after she had been served with the judge's order at 1.10pm - that she last saw her husband on Monday evening at Merriman White's offices.
Mr Lynn was in London on Tuesday with Merriman White and had spoken to his wife by phone, her counsel said. Ms Murphy had called her husband yesterday but had not heard back from him.
Mr Lynn's bankers are also due to meet today to see which of them had loan charges registered against the solicitor's properties and which had received undertakings from him that he would later register their charges.
By exchanging information and agreeing to sell Mr Lynn's properties outside the court process, the banks believe they can sell his assets more quickly and reduce costs by avoiding the appointment of a court officer who will be charged with overseeing the disposal of his assets, according to two legal sources involved in the cases against Mr Lynn. However, it will prove more difficult for the banks to reach agreement on which of them will have first call on the proceeds from the property sales, which is likely to be decided by the court, one of the sources said.
Today's meeting is the second between the banks. Some banks have chosen not to participate and to pursue their own actions instead.