Quinn Insurance administrators got €375 per hour over 10 years for their work

The Quinn Insurance administrators received €375 per hour over 10 years for their work, say court filings setting out millions of euro in professional fees racked up in the running of the failed business.

The High Court appointed two Grant Thornton partners in 2010 to oversee the insurer established by bankrupt businessman Seán Quinn, which is soon to be wound down at an overall cost to the State of some €1 billion.

In a final report to the court in recent weeks, Grant Thornton said the firm had received more than €1.19 million between July 2022 and March 2023 for work led by administrators Michael McAteer and Paul McCann. A further amount of €384,461 had also been incurred at that time.

In addition, €60,509 was to be paid on account before the company’s liquidation begins for “external auditor fees, non-executive director fees and other minor disbursements, final tax fees and the administration team’s time required to close out the administration and commence the liquidation”.

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The accountants’ hourly fees – set in 2012 – were levied at rates including €375 for partners in the firm, €290 for directors, €265 for senior managers, €165 for managers and €110 for assistant managers.

Legal firm Maples & Calder charged €3.3 million last year in the three months between July and September for work on a €900 million claim for negligent auditing the administrators had taken against former Quinn Insurance auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). That action was settled in June 2022 at a cost of €54 million to PwC, “inclusive of [Quinn Insurance] costs”.

Maples & Calder’s payments in the third quarter of 2022 included €2.71 million for “counsels’ fee” to unnamed barristers and VAT. The legal firm received a further €126,372 in the fourth quarter of 2022. Maples did not respond to phone queries or emailed questions.

Solicitors McCann FitzGerald received €17,705 including VAT in the fourth quarter of 2022 for work on the administration. The administrators incurred further fees of €22,020 with that firm between January and March, with an additional €7,000 to be paid for administrators’ legal fees before the liquidation and €14,298 for counsel’s fees.

Grant Thornton declined to comment, saying fees and the PwC settlement were subject to “client confidentiality”.

The administrators’ “23rd and final report” of March 21st was provided by to The Irish Times by the High Court. The document was opened in court in a March hearing to approve the final winding up of the insurer.

The value of the PwC settlement was “in line with” an updated joint opinion by counsel presented on a confidential basis to the court in January 2022, the report said.

That reflected consistent advice that “significant discounts” had to be applied to the high headline claim. The report cited uncertainties generally in any litigation and “the varied, multiple and likely significant acts of contributory negligence of [Quinn Insurance], its directors and third parties”.

The report said the PwC proceedings would soon have entered the discovery phase, involving a “projected universe” of about 150 million documents.