TWO FORMER senior managers with National Irish Bank have been disqualified by the High Court from involvement in the management of a company on grounds of unfitness. The ruling arises from the findings of the investigation into the 1990s tax evasion scandal in the bank.
A disqualification order was not merited in the case of a third manager, the court decided.
Mr Justice Roderick Murphy yesterday ruled that Patrick Byrne, of St Helen's Road, Booterstown Co Dublin, and Michael Keane, Corr Castle, Howth, Co Dublin shared responsibility - as part of senior management within NIB and National Irish Bank Financial Services Ltd (NIBFS) - over the entire 10-year period of the NIB investigation for certain failures of management during that time.
However, the judge said he would not make a disqualification order in relation to another former senior manager with NIB, Dermott Boner, of Chesterfield Avenue, Castleknock, Dublin, who was the bank's chief manager of retail during the early to mid-1990s.
The judge was delivering his reserved judgments on applications by the director of corporate enforcement for disqualification orders under Section 160 of the Companies Act. The judge will hear submissions from lawyers on June 13th next before deciding the length of the disqualification periods for Mr Keane and Mr Byrne.
The move against Mr Keane and Mr Byrne brings to five the number of senior NIB officials disqualified to date arising from the inspectors' report.
Previously Frank Brennan, of Ardglas, Dundrum, Dublin, was disqualified for six years, Nigel D'Arcy, of Castledillon, Straffan, Co Kildare, consented to being disqualified for 10 years while Barry Seymour, former executive director of NIB from April 1994 to July 1996, was disqualified for nine years.
Disqualification proceedings are pending against former NIB chief executive Jim Lacey and one other official.
In detailed judgments, Mr Justice Murphy found that Mr Byrne, NIB's head of finance and strategy from 1994-98, "displayed a lack of commercial probity" in regard to the discharge of his responsibilities to both the company and its creditors which include the Revenue Commissioners.
The judge said he was disqualifying Mr Keane, former general manager of banking and general manager of marketing and distribution at NIB and a board member of NIBFS, on the basis that his conduct as an officer of the company made him unfit to be concerned in the management of a company.
However, the judge added, there was no evidence that Mr Keane was guilty of any breach of his duty as an officer of the company.
In the case of Mr Boner, the judge said the court was not satisfied that his conduct would justify the court making an order to disqualify him.
