Solicitor Mr Noel Smyth has contradicted his former client, Mr Larry Goodman, over the use of an offshore company to recover a debt owed to the beef baron.
Mr Smyth yesterday cited Mr Goodman's desire to avoid publicity as the reason an Isle of Man company was used to recover the £158,000 debt due on a land deal in Coolamber in west Dublin.
Mr Goodman has told the tribunal he knew nothing about the use of the company, Mobberley Ltd, in the transaction and had no account there.
Asked about this yesterday, Mr Smyth said: "I hear what he says, but I disagree".
When Mr Goodman engaged him to recover the money in 1991, his objective was not to be involved in publicity, Mr Smyth explained. The Goodman group was in examinership at the time and the beef tribunal was in progress.
It was decided that Mr Goodman would fund Mobberley, and this company would discharge the debt due to the Bank of Nova Scotia, which was involved in funding the purchase of the land in 1987.
By using companies in Ireland and the Isle of Man, Mr Smyth aimed to take the Coolamber debt out of the examinership, which would enable Mr Goodman to pursue the owners, Southfield Property Company, "with a low risk of publicity".
Some £475,000 was lodged to Mobberley's account with an Isle of Man bank in December 1991, but Mr Smyth said he received no further instructions from Mr Goodman until summer 1993. By then the land had been sold on to Vino Properties, registered in the British Virgin Islands, which later sold it for a massive profit to a builder.
According to Mr Smyth, a "paramount feature" of the instructions he received from Mr Goodman was that matters should be resolved through negotiations rather than litigation and without involving Mr Goodman.
In December 1994 he was approached by Mr Liam Lawlor, who claimed he was due a share of the profits from the sale of the land. Mr Lawlor asked Mr Smyth to act for him as well.
Mr Smyth said the reason he went to the trouble of using two companies, including Mobberley, in recovering the debt was to distance Mr Goodman from the matter.
He wouldn't have rung up Mr Goodman to say he was buying a particular Isle of Man company but he would have told his client about the strategy he would be following.
Asked whether he considered Mobberley to be Mr Goodman's company, Mr Smyth replied "Absolutely". The money was Mr Goodman's, therefore the company was his.
Earlier Mr Kevin Smith, a solicitor advising developer Mr Michael Bailey, said neither he nor his client were concerned after an attempt by Mr Bailey to buy the Coolamber land fell through.
Mr Smith described the contract agreed with Mr Caldwell in 1987 as "punitive and draconian" and said Mr Bailey "didn't sign anything because he didn't have to".
Mr Des O'Neill, SC for the tribunal, said the contract to buy the land for over £2 million contained a number of unusual features, including the requirement for Mr Bailey to provide a personal guarantee for £300,000 and the fact there was no "out" clause which would apply if the purchaser failed to get planning permission.
Mr Smith said the contract was "not that favourable" for the purchaser and this was the reason it didn't proceed. "I'd be looking at the whole deal with a jaundiced eye," he commented.
