ISSUE 1 $500,000 PAYMENT TO LARISA YANEZ PUGA:SEÁN QUINN snr and Peter Darragh Quinn were found to be in contempt in relation to the assignment of the right to money owed by a Ukrainian company to a company based in the British Virgin Islands.
The two men said an assignment of the right to $44.2 million owed by Ukrainian company Univermag to Quinn company Demesne Investments Ltd, from Demesne to another Northern Irish company, Innishmore Consultancy, without the payment of any consideration, was agreed on April 6th, 2011.
The assignment was signed by Seán Quinn snr, for Demesne, Peter Quinn, for Innishmore, and Larisa Yanez Puga, for Univermag.
On October 7th, 2011, Innishmore entered an agreement with Lyndhurst Development Trading SA, of the British Virgin Islands, with Peter Quinn signing on behalf of Innishmore. IBRC believed the purpose of the assignments was so that Lyndhurst could assert its right to the debt, place Univermag into receivership, and seize the Kiev shopping centre Univermag owns.
Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne said she did not believe the Demesne/Innishmore assignment occurred in April 2011 and did not believe the evidence of Seán Quinn snr or Peter Quinn in relation to the matter. She believed the document was signed in and around the same time as assignments to Galfis, and after the Dublin High Court had ordered the Quinns to cease in their efforts to put assets beyond the reach of IBRC.
She did not accept Peter Quinn’s evidence that his signature on the Innishmore to Lyndhurst document was forged.
His evidence was unsatisfactory, she said, including his suggestion Ms Puga was involved in acquiring Lyndhurst.
Lyndhurst, which was created on July 11th, 2011, was used to replace Innishmore because the latter could be clearly connected to the Quinn family, she said. She concluded that the Quinn family was behind Lyndhurst and that the company was being used to “strip the assets of Univermag”.
She said a Ukrainian certificate supporting the Quinns’ case was “not a genuine document”.
ISSUE 2 GALFIS OVERSEAS TRANSFERS:SEÁN QUINN snr and his nephew Peter Darragh Quinn have been found to have acted in contempt in relation to the assignment of the right to debts of $163 million to an offshore company.
The money was owed by a number of Russian property companies to a Northern Ireland Quinn family company called Demesne Investments Ltd, which acted as a treasury company to the Quinn property group.
Documents signed by Seán Quinn snr, Peter Quinn and a Russian individual, Iaroslav Gurniak, a relation of a Moscow lawyer employed by a firm acting for the Quinns, purported to show the right to this money being assigned from Demesne to Galfis Overseas Ltd, of Belize, in return for a nominal sum.
The documents were dated April 4th, 2011. In June and July 2011 the Quinn family was ordered by the High Court to cease its efforts to put its international assets beyond the reach of IBRC.
On June 20th, Peter Quinn travelled to Dubai and met Michael Waechter, a representative of a company secretarial service called Senat.
A firm located in Belize subsequently gave Galfis, a shelf company up to then, to Senat.
During a legal case in Belize, IBRC established that Galfis had no directors up to July 6th, 2011, the date on which 50,000 bearer shares in Galfis were issued to Senat.
Ms Justice Dunne found it was clear the purported assignments dated April 4th, 2011, could not have been made prior to July 6th, 2011.
It was not until March of this year that Peter Quinn said the assignments were to Mr Gurniak personally and not to Galfis.
However, Ms Dunne found his evidence and that of Seán Quinn in relation to this claim to not be credible.
She decided assignments to Mr Gurniak were produced by the two men when it became clear IBRC had discovered that Galfis could not have entered into any arrangement in April 2011.
She was satisfied beyond any doubt that the Galfis assignments had been “deliberately backdated ... to create the impression that they had been entered into prior to the making of the orders [of Mr Justice Clarke in June and July 2011].”
ISSUE 3 UNIVERMAG/LYNDHURST TRANSFERS: SEÁN QUINN, Seán Quinn jnr and Peter Darragh Quinn were found to have been in contempt in relation to the payment of $500,000 to a Ukrainian businesswoman, Larisa Yanez Puga.
Ms Puga was involved in the management of two valuable properties in Kiev that formed part of the Quinn family property group. The $500,000 came in part from a company over which IBRC held security.
Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne said documents were fabricated to justify the payment. She said it was neither appropriate nor necessary for her to speculate as to why the payment was made.
She said a labour contract had been altered with a clause inserted to say Ms Puga, who had a salary of approximately $6,000 per month, would get $500,000 if her job was terminated.
Peter Quinn and Seán Quinn jnr met Ms Puga in Kiev on August 30th, 2011. The reasons they gave for the meeting were not accepted by Ms Justice Dunne.
A minute of a purported meeting signed by Seán Quinn snr and Peter Quinn saying it was decided to dismiss Ms Puga and to pay her as per her employment contract, was considered by the court.
The payment was made on September 5th, 2011 but new directors of the company that operated one of the Kiev properties made a criminal complaint and the money is now frozen in Ms Puga’s account.
The judge said the main events that led to the payment occurred on August 30th, 2011, the day Ms Puga met Seán Quinn jnr and Peter Quinn in Kiev.
She said Peter Quinn’s evidence in relation to the payment had been “evasive, lacking in candour and, I regret to say, untruthful”.
She also found much of Seán Quinn jnr’s evidence in relation to the reasons for his trip to Kiev to be “unbelieveable”.
She rejected the suggestion by the three men that Ms Puga was behind the falsification of the documents that led to her payment.
“I am satisfied as a matter of fact that [the minute of the meeting dismissing Ms Puga] was signed by Seán Quinn snr and Peter Quinn. As already indicated, I am satisfied that the labour contract was fabricated or falsified by the insertion of additional clauses.”
