The report of the Ansbacher inspectors may be presented to the High Court shortly but is unlikely to be published before polling day.
Legal sources have formed the opinion that the inspectors have completed their work and are close to approaching the courts.
It is not expected that the report will be presented this week but it could be presented before May 17th. However publication of the report may yet be delayed by legal challenges against its content.
It is believed the two applicants who sought to take an anonymous case against the inclusion of their names in the report, may again try to challenge publication of their names in the report.
During their case, which ended when Judge McCracken in the High Court ruled that he had no jurisdiction to grant them anonymity, counsel for Mr Paul Appleby, the Director of Corporate Enforcement, said the proper time to take such a challenge would be when the report was presented to the High Court.
The Companies Act 1990 provides that the reports of inspectors appointed by the High Court may be published in full or in part and that the decision on this rests with the courts.
Mr Eoghan Fitzsimons, SC, for Mr Appleby, said during the hearing before Mr Justice McCracken that it was when the report was presented to the High Court that the two anonymous applicants could seek to make their case.
Sources now believe this is likely. If it happens it will bring the two applicants up against their original difficulty - the stipulation that the law must be administered in public.
However, whether they win or lose a renewed argument on the point, it could last for some time as it would be likely to involve a Supreme Court appeal.
Sources believe other objections to the content of the report could be made in the High Court following presentation of the report.
Lawyers for the two anonymous applicants to the courts last month outlined the cases they wished to make. The first was that the High Court acted beyond its powers under the Companies Acts when it instructed the inspectors to name clients of Ansbacher Cayman. Mr Michael Collins SC said the Acts provided for investigations into companies but not into their clients.
If the argument was put by the two anonymous clients or by anyone else, it would- if successful - mean the Ansbacher report would be published without any names.
Mr Collins said that if his clients failed in that argument, they might want to make another one where they would argue that the definition of client used by the inspectors was too broad.
His clients, he said, argued that they never knowingly did business with Ansbacher Cayman. Again there may be other people due to be named in the report who might try to make a similar argument.
The Ansbacher report, when presented, will be given to the Director of Corporate Enforcement by the High Court.
In a case where the court withheld a section of the report from publication, it is not clear whether that section of the report would be deleted from the copy given to Mr Appleby.
