'No record' of €370,000 spend

A daughter of ex-billionaire Sean Quinn has claimed she has no records of how she spent more than €370,000 on a Visa card in …

A daughter of ex-billionaire Sean Quinn has claimed she has no records of how she spent more than €370,000 on a Visa card in a little over a year.

Aoife Quinn said she could not recall how she went through the money between June 2011 and July last year, but believed most of it was spent on legal fees.

Asked about the fees, she told the Commercial Court she had no receipts for them.

In her second day of being cross-examined about whether her family have fully disclosed their assets, Ms Quinn said her €379,000 salary from three Russian companies - Red Sector, Logistica and Finanstroy - was paid into Ocean Bank in Moscow.

She had to travel to the Russian capital to open up the account, for which she received no email or written statements but only text messages. Her mobile phone was stolen last year, she said.

But Ms Quinn denied it was a significant enough event - switching her salary account from Ulster Bank in Main Street, Ballyconnell, Co Cavan to Moscow - that she would have retained any records.

"I didn't believe so," she said.

"I was just told the transfer could not have been made to an Irish bank."

The balance of the Moscow account fell from €379,000 to €6,000 over a 13 month period from June 2011.

"The vast, vast majority of that money was spent on legal fees," said Ms Quinn.

Asked about two bonuses of about €50,000 paid to her from the companies, she said she could not recall the exact amount.

"I'm not sure of the figure," she said.

"I'm not great with maths, especially in my head and especially under pressure."

Ms Quinn is the first of five of Mr Quinn's children and three of their spouses to be cross-examined by lawyers for the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation.

The former Anglo Irish Bank is seeking to establish if the family fully disclosed information on assets and accounts in their names after freezing orders were imposed by the court last July.

Paul Gallagher SC, for IBRC, said it was inconceivable that Ms Quinn had no notes or documents from a whole series of business meetings in Moscow, Zurich, Cyprus and Dubai.

The barrister repeatedly pressed her on whether it was believable she had no employment records, no bank statements and no records of very substantial payments and transactions.

But Ms Quinn said a substantial amount of documentation has been disclosed to lawyers for both the family and IBRC, including everything relevant that was in her possession.

The science graduate, who has studied law, said she met up with sisters - Ciara and Collette - in April 2011 and they decided to dispose of the shares of a number of Cypriot-based companies and their Russian subsidiaries.

She said it all happened during a rushed five or 10-minute meeting in Dublin, either at her house, her sister's house or the offices of one of their companies - she could not recall.

After an intervention by Judge Peter Kelly to ask if it was credible there was no documentation about a decision of that magnitude, she insisted it was at the time.

"I believe that this was a reaction to the bank trying to take everything off us," she said.

"That was our reaction whether it was right or not."

Mr Gallagher said Ms Quinn's disclosures were "very significantly deficient", particularly in relation to documentation she had at one time but not any longer.

The barrister also told the court a server at Finanstroy was destroyed and the hard drive was deliberately smashed, according to evidence from a bankruptcy receiver in Russia.

An IT expert confirmed it was dismantled, saying this was probably in a deliberate attempt to prevent recovery of computer records.

However, Ms Quinn said she understood a Hewlett Packard server was removed but not destroyed and insisted IBRC had access to all bank documents in relation to the company.

"I understand that Anglo or their agents in Russia have full access to bank records," she said.

PA