Courts

Michael Fingleton’s ‘right hand man’ claims he never met or spoke to Michael Lynn

Brian Fitzgibbon says claims by Mr Lynn ‘are all lies’

Brian Fitzgibbon said Michael Fingleton had a lot of discretion to go outside normal lending procedures. Photograph: David Sleator/The Irish Times

Wed Nov 22 2023 - 18:31

A former senior banker at Irish Nationwide has told the multimillion euro trial of Michael Lynn that he never met the former solicitor.

Former home loans manager at the building society Brian Fitzgibbon responded “they are all lies,” when defence counsel put his client’s position that they met and had dealings with him.

Mr Lynn (55), of Millbrook Court, Redcross, Co Wicklow is on trial accused of the theft of about €27 million from seven financial institutions. He has pleaded not guilty to 21 counts of theft in Dublin between October 23, 2006 and April 20, 2007.

It is the prosecution’s case that Mr Lynn obtained multiple mortgages on the same properties, in a situation where banks were unaware that other institutions were also providing finance.

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The financial institutions involved are Bank of Ireland, National Irish Bank (later known as Danske Bank), Irish Life and Permanent, Ulster Bank, ACC Bank, Bank of Scotland Ireland and Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS).

Karl Finnegan, prosecuting, read evidence given by Mr Lynn at the first trial to Mr Fitzgibbon on Wednesday.

Mr Lynn gave evidence during the first trial that he met Mr Fitzgibbon, whom he described as INBS chief executive Michael Fingleton’s “right hand man”, several times and that they had a good relationship.

Mr Fitzgibbon told the court that he had never met or spoken to Mr Lynn “in any capacity”. He said he had “no communication channels at all” with Mr Lynn.

Mr Fitzgibbon agreed with Mr Finnegan that he would have the “port of call” to approve loan facilities “up to his discretion” when Mr Fingleton was not available.

Olivia Greene previously told the trial that she was a senior underwriter for INBS when Mr Lynn’s €4.1 million mortgage application was referred to her in late 2006 by Mark Mulcahy, Dún Laoghaire branch manager.

Ms Greene said that the loan amount was outside of her discretionary limit and she discussed it with Mr Fingleton. As a result of this conversation, a loan offer was made.

When asked about this loan to purchase a property in Howth, Glenlion, Mr Fitzgibbon said he didn’t feel “comfortable” and rejected it.

He said he told Mr Mulcahy there was an “extra level” and the loan could be presented to Mr Fingleton. He said this happened and it was “agreed”.

Mr Fitzgibbon agreed that his approval was noted on the loan facility to Mr Lynn for Glenlion. He said Mr Fingleton “would sign very little loan documentation”.

He told the jury he understood the loan was for a principal private residence and in these cases, the bank would require the first legal charge as security.

Mr Fitzgibbon agreed with Mark Lynam, defending, that there was a “specific dynamic” within the building society and Mr Fingleton would have wanted to know about a significant loan.

Mr Lynam put it to the witness that Mr Fingleton’s position was that he had approved the loan. He denied this “categorically” and said Mr Fingleton agreed it.

Defence counsel suggested to Mr Fitzgibbon that INBS was an “abnormal lender”.

He disagreed, saying the vast majority of lending was asset backed, however “where it was unusual was the authority and discretion Mr Fingleton had to go outside normal procedure”.

He said he was aware that there would have been “favoured clients”.

In other evidence, an employee of Danske Bank gave evidence that the institution retrieved a number of documents in response to a court order, including some records from the bank’s debt collection system.

He said personal email accounts were deleted three months after staff left the institution and staff who had dealings with Mr Lynn left the institution about 10 years ago. He said no hard copy paper file was retrieved, but he could not say if it had been lost or destroyed as there was no record.

He confirmed the bank has procedures in place to identify material that should not be destroyed in which legal proceedings are ongoing.

A worker from Ulster Bank’s parent company, National Westminster Group, confirmed that no records of internal investigations in relation to Mr Lynn’s lending were recovered on foot of a court order.

She also said no emails sent or received from a Kendar Global email address were recovered following a search.

The witness told defence counsel that she did not carry out the searches directly and had no personal knowledge of the search parameters used.

Separately, an employee of Rabobank, the parent company of ACC Bank, gave evidence about searches carried out by the institution after receiving court orders to supply documents relating to internal investigations into Mr Lynn’s loans and correspondence to and from a Kendar Global email address.

He said there were no records of internal investigations about the bank’s lending to Mr Lynn. He also confirmed a number of emails were recovered and provided to gardaí.

The trial continues before Judge Martin Nolan and the jury.

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