THE MORIARTY tribunal has accused businessman Denis O'Brien of illegally disclosing to journalists information about its provisional findings.
Lawyers for Mr O'Brien have rejected the claim, which arises from interviews he gave to four Sunday newspapers a fortnight ago, and have said there was no legal basis for the tribunal to make such an allegation.
In the interviews given last month, the businessman attacked the inquiry for being "out of control" and said it had made 60 "negative findings" against him following its investigation of the awarding of the State second mobile phone licence to a consortium headed by Mr O'Brien.
The tribunal then wrote to his legal advisers, Meagher Solicitors, saying he had "wrongfully and unlawfully" disclosed information about the substance of the tribunal's provisional findings. Meaghers replied for Mr O'Brien, saying they were "very perturbed" at the accusation and arguing that it was without legal foundation.
"The tribunal is a tribunal of inquiry and as such its findings . . . represent no more than a reasoned and informed expression of opinion . . . and are . . . legally sterile and devoid of legal effect.
"Put simply, it is not for the tribunal to find that our client has broken the law," the letter from Mr O'Brien's solicitors stated.
The letter denied that Mr O'Brien knowingly breached the confidentiality of the tribunal findings and claimed the tribunal never said there was any prohibition on disclosing the substance of provisional findings. The substance of the findings were disclosed in almost 20 different newspaper articles, it argued, but the tribunal had not taken any action in relation to these articles.
The letter to the tribunal was copied to the four newspapers which carried the original interviews. The tribunal has also written to one of the newspapers, the Sunday Times, asking it to explain why it published the interview, the newspaper reported yesterday.
In the letter, the tribunal said it was "very surprised" by the interview because of an undertaking it gave not to publish the provisional findings.
The newspaper said the undertaking it gave last December was for non-publication only "while those provisional findings remain confidential". It argued that the substance of the tribunal's findings had since been published elsewhere and it had a right and a duty to publish the interview.
