The IBRC Special Liquidators formally told the Commission of Inquiry that they would claim confidentiality on documents being sought by the Commission in a letter at the end of August.
This followed a month of discussions between the two sides and their legal advisers.
In a determination in relation to the legal points put to it by the Special Liquidators, the Commission sole member, Mr Justice Brian Cregan, outlined the timetable of discussions between the two sides.
The Commission first asked the liquidators in early August to voluntarily disclose a range of information in their possession, in relation to the deals they were asked to investigate.
On August 12th, the liquidators said they were not in a position to voluntarily disclose the information. On August 24th the Commission sent the liquidators a formal legal direction to hand over certain documents, and subsequently sought further documents.
The liquidators complied and sent the requested documents, but in covering letters pointed out their legal advice that the information was confidential, arising from a banker/customer relationship and claimed confidentiality subject to the 2003 Commission of Investigation Act.
This claim of confidentiality was first formally asserted by the liquidators on August 28th in relation to documents sent on that date. It was subsequently repeated with all further documents sent,including 276 lever-arch files running to approximately 186,000 pages relating to the sale of Siteserv to a company controlled by businessman Denis O’Brien.
The determination from Mr Justice Cregan said that he then asked the liquidators to furnish their legal submission on the issue to him , which they did on September 21st.
The Commission then asked the Department of Finance and the former IBRC directors for their view.The Department of Finance furnished its submission on October 5th.
It had separately told the Commission that its legal advice was also that the information was confidential, but that it believed that the Commission had the power to override this in the public interest, if it so decided.
Mr Justice Cregan did not agree, saying that the 2004 Act under which the Commission had been established gave it no explicit powers to override confidentiality.
