Cantillon: Hynes hearings costly and open, though not so open

For journalists used to dealing with the courts and public inquiries, the recently-ended hearings of the Disciplinary Tribunal of the Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board (Carb) in relation to the Wexford accountant Alan Hynes (inset), came across as a weird beast.

Carb is a creature of Chartered Accountants Ireland and is a way of reassuring the public that they have somewhere to go if they want to raise a complaint against a member. According to its website, Carb regulates the institute's members in accordance with the institute's bye-laws, independently, openly and in the public interest.

Hynes came in for the sternest punishment available under the bye-laws after last week’s tribunal ruling – exclusion from the institute. His hearing was heard over 14 days last year. The hearings were held in public but the complaints that were the focus of the hearings were not publicly available other than being capable of being gleaned from what was said at the hearings.

Similarly, the damning report on the Hynes complaints was disclosed on Friday of last week by being read into the record in a public hearing, but copies of the report were not available to the public. The bye-laws do not allow for it.

It was hard not to think that the process involved holding members to account while, at the same time, being too inclined towards trying to protect them.

Both Carb and Hynes were legally represented for the whole, slow-moving process, and the costs are no doubt significant. The tribunal ruled that Hynes should pay €500,000 of whatever the total is, though one of the finds against him was that he had judgment debts of more than €6 million which he has not settled. The tribunal also heard that his (non-member) wife, Noreen, is in receipt of payments from the institute’s benevolence fund, and that this is the couple’s main source of income. So it looks as if the members’ are going to have to foot the substantial costs.

Hynes has 21 days in which to appeal. He remains a member of the institute until that time is up, or any appeal brought is heard. An appeal may look at the whole saga afresh and come to entirely new findings. More costs for the members, who must be thinking the whole thing’s a bit rum. But their pain is nothing compared to that of the investors who lost the money they put into Hynes’s schemes.