Nama urged to tell of dealings with Belfast law firm at centre of Project Eagle

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) has been urged to disclose all its dealings with a Belfast law firm at the centre of the Project Eagle controversy after it emerged it paid the solicitors €21,000 in fees last year.

The State toxic assets agency said the money was paid to Tughans for legal services connected to "a number of residual assets located in Northern Ireland", but refused to identify or elaborate on the assets.

Nama also declined to answer whether it had made any further payments to the firm this year or in the preceding years.

Tughans, along with US law firm Brown Rudnick, were advisers to US vulture fund Cerberus when it bought the £1.2 billion Project Eagle property portfolio from Nama in 2014.

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Ian Coulter, former managing partner of Tughans, resigned in the wake of revelations that he transferred £6 million to an Isle of Man bank account without his firm’s knowledge.

Another US company, Pimco, said it pulled out of an earlier bid for the portfolio – the biggest property deal in the North’s history – because it was asked for a fixer payment of £16 million for three parties behind the scenes – Mr Coulter, Belfast businessman Frank Cushnahan and Brown Rudnick.

Wrongdoing

All parties have denied any wrongdoing.

Seán Fleming, chairman of the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee, said he was stunned that Nama was continuing to pay fees to Tughans.

“If it is unconnected to Project Eagle, I am wondering why they were even dealing with Tughans last year at all,” he said.

“And if it is connected with Project Eagle, I don’t think they should be making any payments when a commission of investigation headed by a High Court judge is looking into the matter. They should be awaiting the outcome of that.”

A commission of investigation into Project Eagle, headed by retired High Court judge John D Cooke, was set up by the Government in June last year, following a welter of controversy over the deal.

Mr Fleming called on Nama to explain the payment and disclose if any further payments have been made by the State agency.

“This is a matter of public interest,” he said.

Special report

“It is such a matter of public interest, not only did the Comptroller and Auditor General do a special report on it, but the Public Accounts Committee did a special report on it, the Oireachtas had a special debate on it and the Government set up a commission of investigation – on the Richter scale, this matter is 10 out of 10 when it comes to public controversies and the public interest.

“Nama should not be withholding on matters that are of such heightened public interest.”

Gordon MRM, a PR firm that is paid €90,000 a year in public money to deal with media inquiries for Nama, said last year’s payment to Tughans “relates to legal services provided in respect of a number of residual assets located in Northern Ireland”.

Asked for further details on payments to the firm and whether it was appropriate for Nama to retain its services in light of the Project Eagle controversy, a spokesman said the State agency had “nothing to add” to the comment already provided.

Delayed

The commission of investigation into Project Eagle was supposed to have concluded its report last month, but said Nama’s failure to hand over certain documentation has delayed its findings until December.

Nama was co-operating with the investigation but its method of collecting documents had omitted relevant material, the inquiry said in an interim report.

The commission received 34,000 documents on Project Eagle in two separate tranches in February and March this year.

However, an analysis showed certain documents provided to the commission by other parties had not been captured by the agency’s trawl.