Irish Bank Resolution Corporation has told the Commercial Court it believes a joint venture commercial arrangement with a firm specialising in assets recovery in Russia and Ukraine is its best hope of recovering any assets from the Quinn family's international property group.
Paul Gallagher SC, for the bank, told Mr Justice Peter Kelly it had decided to enter into the JVA with the firm, called A1, because of difficulties encountered in recovering assets. It had not recovered any assets to date and was in an impossible position, he said.
The bank believed members of the Quinn family were directing steps to frustrate its efforts at assets recovery and it had encountered setbacks in recent months, including losing control last month of the Kutzoff Tower in Moscow, the most valuable asset in the IPG, he said.
Under the proposed JVA, to be completed within days a payment of €31m will initially be made to the A1 firm with further substantial payments to follow.
Mr Gallagher rejected claims by the Quinns the bank was wrongly taking monies out of the IPG to pay A1 and said the bank had to enter into the JVA because of the actions of members of the family. The bank would keep a record of all payments made and recovered under the arrangement, he said.
Mr Justice Kelly said he was conscious the bank was quite properly updating the court on developments but was not seeking any order relating to the proposed JVA. The bank had the approval of the Minister for Finance to enter into the arrangement with A1 and the court had no role in commercial arrangements.
Niall McPartland, a son in law of Sean Quinn, said the proposed JVA would mean losses of tens of millions to IPG companies and the family disputed that the bank had any valid security over those companies. The Quinns have no control over the assets and the bank continued to reject their efforts to assist it in recovering them, he added.
The Quinns accepted some €455m was owed to the bank but denied the bank had any legitimate security over the IPG assets, he said. The bank had taken control of a large number of other Quinn assets which could meet the €455m sum, he added.
Also today, Mr Justice Kelly refused a separate application by some Quinn family members to discharge Declan Taite as receiver appointed by IBRC over their assets and to discharge Arthur Cox as solicitors for the receivers. He would give his reasons for that ruling later, he said.
