SEVERAL BANKS have considered making an application to have missing solicitor Michael Lynn declared bankrupt in an effort to seize his property assets across Europe to pay off some of his estimated €80 million in loans.
A number of lenders who provided the multimillion-euro loans have met privately on several occasions over the last six months - outside their legal cases against Mr Lynn - to discuss taking separate action in an effort to fast-track the process of securing and selling his assets to repay some of his debts.
The banks met twice last year following the collapse of Mr Lynn's law practice and European property development business last October in an effort to reach an agreement on the sale of his properties and to see if they can divide the proceeds to recover the bank borrowings owed to them.
Senior bankers met again in recent weeks to discuss the possibility of making a court application to declare Mr Lynn bankrupt in the belief that an independent accountant or official assignee appointed by courts could trace his European assets and make applications in foreign courts through the bankruptcy process.
However, the banks were concerned they would have to pay the costs of the bankruptcy process, in the event that it failed to secure the sale of his overseas assets.
Several lenders are still considering pooling funds to pay for an independent officer, such as a forensic accountant, to make applications in European countries to seize and sell some of his foreign properties. Mr Lynn said he had 31 overseas properties and 72 bank accounts in continental Europe in a court affidavit he filed last year.
AIB, where Mr Lynn held some of his personal current accounts and the current accounts of his companies and law practice, launched legal proceedings against him in Portugal where he owns three houses and one office. He was also building a property development of 272 apartments and 10 houses in the Algarve.
The bank transferred a judgment it secured against Mr Lynn in the High Court to Portugal in February. AIB has lodged a claim for €7.187 million against Mr Lynn in the Portuguese courts.
The bank's legal proceedings in Portugal will allow it to make claims against Mr Lynn's properties on the Algarve in an attempt to recover some of its loans.
Mr Lynn is at the centre of a multitude of legal actions in Ireland taken by 11 financial institutions. Some 130 sets of proceedings have been issued against him.
A number of Irish lenders have chosen not to participate in the private bank meetings, preferring to concentrate their financial resources on pursuing their various legal cases against him.
Mr Lynn's wife, Bríd Murphy, told the court yesterday that she last saw her husband at the airport in Sofia, Bulgaria, "last Monday week" and that Mr Lynn flew to Portugal afterwards.
