Quinns ‘will not get foreign assets’ from liquidators

Negotiations between the family of former billionaire Seán Quinn and the special liquidators winding down the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation will not be influenced by political factors, according to a source with knowledge of the contacts.

There is also no question of the family ending up with any of the valuable foreign property portfolio it tried to put beyond the bank’s reach, or that the IBRC would walk away from any suspected fraud it may have encountered.

A Fine Gael councillor from Leitrim, John McCartin, who is driving the proposal that a deal be agreed between the two sides, has been asked by the party if he would be available for the coming general election.

Mr McCartin, whose father, Joe McCartin, served as a Fine Gael TD and MEP, is the chairman of QBRC, the entity that bought back parts of the former Quinn Group earlier this year and returned them to local control. Mr Quinn is working as a consultant to the new owners, and has returned to his old office in the Derrylin, Co Fermanagh complex.

Conspiracy case

Contacts between the IBRC and the family are exploring whether the family might drop its €4.5 billion claim arising from the seizure of the Quinn Group in 2011, and the liquidators might drop the so-called conspiracy case against members of the family.

The first case is scheduled to begin later this year and the second is expected to begin early next year. Both are mammoth cases that have already clocked up millions in legal fees and are expected to each last weeks if not months in the High Court.

Mr McCartin is understood to be looking for a commercial solution to the dispute acceptable to both sides.

Any resolution of the cases would play well in constituencies along the Border for Fine Gael and enhance Mr McCartin’s chances of being elected to the Dáil if selected as a party candidate.

The special liquidators to the IBRC, Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson of KPMG, have completed the bulk of their work. Unlike most liquidators, they report to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan rather than the courts.

The family is claiming the loan securities used to seize the Quinn Group were not legally sound. The case suffered a blow when the Supreme Court ruled recently against part of the argument the family wants to make.