Stud farm Coolmore and horse trainer Aidan O’Brien, who are suing Glanbia Foods Ireland over a banned substance in contaminated feed that forced its horses out of a prestigious race meeting, are claiming losses of at least €30 million relation to the case, according to the Business Post.
Mr O’Brien, his son Donnacha and eight companies linked to the Tipperary-based Coolmore Stud-Ballydoyle Stables operation, one of the world’s most successful horse breeding and racing enterprises, issued High Court proceedings against Glanbia Foods Ireland late last month.
The contaminated feed at the centre of the legal action taken by Coolmore and Mr O’Brien rocked the horse racing world in the autumn of 2020 when it led to horses being pulled from races.
Property funds bulk buy 350 houses after 10% stamp duty move
The Business Post also reported that institutional funds and property investors have snapped up more than 350 houses at a cost of over €100 million since the snap introduction of a 10 per cent stamp duty last year to curb this area of activity in the market.
The Government introduced the special rate on purchasers of 10 or more houses in a 12 month period — after a public backlash over investment funds beginning to creep into commuter towns to snap up properties in bulk in new housing estates. The regular stamp duty rate for homes valued at up to €1 million is 1 per cent.
The newspaper report was based off figures provided by the Revenue Commissioners.
Irish limited partnership links to ‘secrecy jurisdictions’ highlighted
The Sunday Times reported that almost 1,000 so-called limited partnership (LPs) vehicles set up in Ireland in the past seven years are controlled by partners in “secrecy locations”, including the Seychelles or Belize.
While LPs are a legitimate and useful structure for investment and private equity funds and family partnerships to house investments, the report cites Graham Barrow, a UK export on offshore companies, as saying that the opaque nature of these vehicles leave them open for “shady deals” by money launderers using a web of companies across various jurisdictions.
The Sunday Times said that an investigation by it and Bellingcat, the Dutch-based investigative group, had revealed that over the LPs set up in the Republic at an unprecedented rate in recent years, only a third had a controlling partner based in the State.
Revolut plans to join Irish banks’ Synch app
Digital bank Revolut has contacted Synch Payments, the mobile payments platform joint venture being developed by the main Irish banks, with a view to joining the system when it is up and running, according to the Sunday Independent.
The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) approved the establishment of the venture, which is aimed at competing with the likes of Revolut and N26 in the instant-payments market. The CCPC imposed conditions on Synch to make sure that it would be open to other parties to join the system without undue delays.
