Quinn family members ordered to provide details

Family members of jailed bankrupt businessman Seán Quinn have been ordered to provide a receiver with their personal email account passwords, phones and other material to allow him get information related to their assets and financial and tax affairs.

It also emerged yesterday there will be no application to have former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Seán Fitzpatrick or former Anglo executives Pat Whelan and Willie McAteer give evidence in the Quinn family’s action denying liability for some €2.34 billion in loans advanced to Quinn companies on grounds they were illegally made.

Mr Justice Peter Kelly ruled receiver Declan Taite, appointed last July over the personal assets of various Quinn family members at the request of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), is entitled to passwords, computers, phones and other material relating to the Quinns’ assets to elicit information dating from June 27th, 2009. That was the date proceedings were brought by IBRC, formerly Anglo, aimed at restraining asset-stripping worth up to $430 million from the Quinn family’s international property group.

The receiver was entitled to the orders on grounds including the admitted asset-stripping, findings of contempt against three members of the Quinn family and findings that a “mesmerisingly complex” asset-stripping scheme continued after court orders were made, the judge said.

While the receiver had sought orders with no time limits, the judge said unlimited orders were not appropriate and the orders would not apply to material dated before June 27th, 2009. He was also building various protections into the orders to protect personal data of the Quinns, he said.

He refused an application by Niall McPartland, for the Quinns, to stay his order pending an appeal to the Supreme Court. Mr McPartland said he wanted to appeal on grounds his side’s personal and constitutional rights to privacy were being breached.

Andrew Fitzpatrick, for the receiver, opposed a stay, saying the matter was urgent and had already been delayed arising from an application by the defendants for the receiver to be discharged on grounds of alleged conflict of interests by him and his solicitors, Arthur Cox. That application was refused last week.

Yesterday’s orders apply to the five Quinn children, three of their spouses and Peter Darragh Quinn, Seán Quinn snr’s nephew.