A FORMER head of lending with Anglo Irish Bank, Tom Browne, is seeking court orders requiring the bank to discover documents concerning loans made by it in 2007 and 2008 to businessman Seán Quinn to support its share price.
Mr Browne wants the documents for his defence to the bank’s claim for €50 million judgment against him over unpaid loans but Paul Gardiner SC, for the bank, said yesterday Mr Browne already has all relevant documents and is “fishing”, at the bank’s expense, for something more because he knows he cannot prove his case.
Mr Browne’s central claim is that Anglo supported its share price prior to November 2007 by lending money to Mr Quinn or related entities. On that basis, documents related to events after November 2007 are not relevant, the bank claims.
The bank has also said that, as managing director of lending with Anglo between early 2005 and 2007, Mr Browne was aware of various loans made to Mr Quinn. Mr Browne had led an Anglo delegation on a three-day “intensive tour and inspection of Quinn company developments and intended developments” in Russia, the Ukraine and Turkey in July 2007, the bank said.
Mr Justice George Birmingham yesterday began hearing an application by Mr Browne for orders for “further and better discovery” of documents. The hearing continues today.
Mr Browne, Ferney Hill, Brighton Road, Foxrock, Dublin, claims he has no liability to Anglo for the €50 million on grounds including that the bank was guilty of fraudulent misrepresentation in allegedly failing to inform him of matters relating to the purchase of 28 per cent of its shares by Mr Quinn.
He claims that, when Anglo advanced millions of euro to him in late 2007 to buy its shares, it and various State authorities knew, but failed to tell him, it had loaned substantial sums to Mr Quinn in November 2007 to support and fund Mr Quinn’s liabilities incurred to fund the purchase of shares in Anglo itself.
These matters, if known on the financial markets, would have had “a devastating effect” on Anglo’s stability and share price, Mr Browne claims.
Had he known of them, he would never have exercised his share options in late November 2007 or held on shares which became “worthless”, he alleges.
Yesterday, John Rogers SC, for Mr Browne, said new and relevant material to his client's defence had come to light from a recently published book – Anglo Republic: Inside the Bank that Broke Ireland– by the "eminent journalist" Simon Carswell of The Irish Times.
That material included details of a meeting between Mr Quinn and David Drumm and Sean Fitzpatrick of Anglo “at the end of summer 2007” when Mr Quinn said he held a 24 per cent stake in the bank via “contracts for difference”.
Mr Carswell had stated Anglo’s directors then engaged in meetings and briefings about Mr Quinn’s contracts for difference but decided not to reveal that information to Mr Browne, who was still a director of the bank, although he had tendered his resignation of head of lending, counsel said.
Mr Gardiner, for Anglo, said information in the book was available to Mr Browne from notes taken by him in March 2010 of the draft “O’Connor report” into Anglo. Mr Browne had also been given information that, as of November 28th, 2007, Anglo was aware Quinn interests held 25 per cent shares in Anglo and, at that time, had been loaned €687 million and it was difficult to see how further information could advance his case.
