The former Chief Executive of Esat Digifone has completed his evidence to the Moriarty Tribunal. Barry Maloney was questioned about his reasons for trying to delay the flotation of Esat Telecom in 1997. Lawyers for Denis O'Brien said that Mr Maloney stood to make more money if the company he was connected with, Esat Digifone, was floated first.
Counsel for Mr O'Brien, Eoin McGonigal, asked was it possible that this had been the reason Mr Maloney wanted to delay the process? Mr Maloney rejected the suggestion that he deliberately tried to postpone the flotation of Esat Telecom. He said that he felt it would have been less of a hazard to wait until the Moriarty Tribunal had completed its work before floating the company. The Tribunal was established shortly before the IPO in late 1997.
Esat Telecom knew that an investigation of the awarding of the second GSM licence was a possibility. Mr Maloney said that he had put forward other sound business reasons for delaying the IPO. He was also asked again by counsel for the Tribunal why he waited a year to raise his concerns when there was the possibility of an utterly corrupt payment having been made.
Mr Maloney said that he believed it had nothing to do with Esat Digifone at that time. It was Mr Maloney's fourth and final day in the witness box.
