Mr Justice Flood has rejected an application by the auctioneer Mr John Finnegan to restrict the tribunal's inquiries into his professional activities.
The chairman ruled the tribunal was entitled to put questions relating to Mr Finnegan's role as an auctioneer and estate agent in order to explain his role in a series of land transactions with builders Brennan and McGowan.
He said the evidence heard so far was sufficient to justify inquiries about the possibility of bribery and conflict of interest in relation to the transactions. Mr Finnegan may challenge the ruling in the High Court before he is called to give evidence next week. Mr Justice Flood said the tribunal could not avoid inquiring into relevant transactions merely because this would involve scrutiny of Mr Finnegan's professional relationship with others.
He pointed out that Mr Finnegan had been involved in six property deals with Brennan and McGowan. In four of these, he did not make any financial contribution, yet he shared equally in payments made to the three men in Jersey.
"These transactions do not have the outward appearance of being transactions carried out in the normal course of an estate agent/client relationship between Mr Finnegan and Messrs Brennan and McGowan." In some of the transactions, Mr Finnegan acted for the vendors and on other occasions he was a director of the vendor company.
Mr Justice Flood pointed out that £60,000 paid to Mr Ray Burke had come out of the last of the six deals. Differing accounts had been given about the source of this money, some of which had come from a company owned by Mr Finnegan. No explanation had been provided for the payment of money to Mr Finnegan in four transactions where he had no beneficial interest. "At this point in time, no immediately comprehensible explanation for these transactions has been elicited," he said. It was therefore incumbent on tribunal counsel to put "possible scenarios" to the witnesses.
