The High Court has disqualified two former senior managers with National Irish Bank from involvement in the management of a company on grounds of unfitness arising from the findings of the investigation into the 1990s tax evasion scandal in the bank.
Mr Justice Roderick Murphy ruled that Patrick Byrne, St Helen's Road, Booterstown, Co Dublin, and Michael Keane, Corr Castle, Howth, Co Dublin were part of senior management within NIB
and National Irish Bank Financial Services Ltd (NIBFS) which were responsible over the entire ten-year period of the NIB investigation for certain failures of management during that time.
But Mr Justice Murphy said he was not making any disqualification order in the case of another former senior manager at NIB, Dermott Boner of Chesterfield Avenue, Castleknock, Dublin. Mr Boner was the bank's Chief Manager of Retail during the early to mid-1990s.
The judge was delivering his reserved judgments granting an application by the Director of Corporate Enforcement for a disqualification order under Section 160 of the Companies Act. The judge will hear submissions from lawyers on June 13 before deciding the length of Mr Keane's and Mr Byrne's disqualification periods.
Mr Keane and Mr Byrne become the fourth and fifth senior NIB officials to be disqualified arising from the inspectors' report. Disqualification proceedings are also pending against former NIB CEO Jim Lacey.
Mr Justice Murphy found that Mr Byrne, NIBs Head of Finance and Strategy from 1994 to 1998, had 'displayed a lack of commercial probity' in the discharge of his responsibilities to both the company and its creditors which included the Revenue.
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 grounds that his conduct made him unfit to be concerned in the management of a company.
In the case of Mr Boner, the judge said the court was not satisfied that his conduct would justify the court's making an order to disqualify him. It seemed to the court that 'on balance' Mr Boner had attempted to address problems such as the improper charging of fees.
The applications to disqualify arose from the investigation by inspectors into the affairs of NIB and National Irish Bank (NIBFS) between the late 1980s and 1990s. The inspectors concluded in 2004 that NIB and NIBFS were involved in a number of improper practices and that a number of members of senior management bore responsibility for some of these practices.
They concluded that senior management figures failed to deal decisively with bogus non-resident accounts, the improper charging of interest and CMI policies.
