Mr Dermot Desmond threatened to sue the former chairman of Esat Digifone, Mr Denis O'Brien, in 1997 if his claims that he never paid money in connection with the securing of the second mobile phone licence turned out to be misleading, it emerged at the tribunal yesterday.
The threat was detailed in notes of a meeting to discuss the possibility that Mr O'Brien had made two £100,000 payments, one of them to former Fine Gael minister Mr Michael Lowry.
The notes of the meeting on October 20th, 1997, were kept by Mr Michael Walsh, a director of International Investment and Underwriting Ltd and of IIU Nominees Ltd, a company which held a shareholding in Esat Digifone for Mr Desmond. Mr Walsh was appointed a director of Esat Digifone as a representative of IIU Nominees Ltd in May 1996.
He said IIU Nominees initially became involved with Esat Digifone when it entered into an agreement with Esat Digifone on September 29th, 1995.
"Under this agreement IIU committed to pay its pro rata share of the bid costs and to underwrite the Communicorp obligations to Esat Digifone. In return, Esat Digifone Ltd undertook to place 25 per cent of its equity with IIU."
The 1997 notes made by Mr Walsh said all directors were of the opinion that all reasonable steps should be taken to ensure nothing untoward had happened. They added: "Dermot Desmond informed Denis O'Brien that he was very upset by the events.
"While he accepted Denis O'Brien's assurance, if it turned out that Denis O'Brien was misleading him, Dermot Desmond would be suing Denis O'Brien for any damage. This went for anyone else who had done anything which might undermine the company in any way," the notes said.
They added: "Dermot Desmond wanted written assurances from each of the shareholders that nothing had been done which would in any way impact on the mobile licence."
Mr Walsh said he felt comfortable that given the quality of civil servants involved in the awarding of the licence he felt they would have ensured there was no room for political interference in the licence process.
An investigation of payments by Mr O'Brien in the years 1995 to 1997 was not informed about a £400,000 payment to an Isle of Man account.
Mr Walsh told Mr John Coughlan SC, for the tribunal, that accounts in Woodchester Bank belonging to Mr O'Brien were searched for debits of more than £25,000.
Members of the Esat Digifone board were given explanations for each debit discovered. Mr Walsh said he had no recall of any payment of £407,000 from an account in Woodchester to an account in the Isle of Man in the summer of 1996. He also said he and his fellow Digifone directors were not aware of two payments amounting to £150,000 subsequently made from the Isle of Man account to an account of the late Mr David Austin.
He said the only payment to Mr Austin the board had been aware of at the time of the 1997 inquiry was a payment of $50,000 intended as a contribution to Fine Gael.
Mr Walsh said he thought it was foolish of Mr Austin to seek the contribution on behalf of Fine Gael, and foolish of Esat Digifone/Telenor to have paid it.
He said from his point of view it seemed irrelevant whether the donation was made by Telenor on its own behalf or while facilitating Mr O'Brien.