A High Court judge has said he will not tolerate any further delay by businessman Colm Wu in providing information to liquidators about companies he controlled.
Mr Justice Mark Sanfey made the comment when he agreed to give Mr Wu more time to file an affidavit stating what he knows about the finances of 10 companies from which liquidators say money were diverted to pay debts and obligations.
Insolvency practitioners Myles Kirby and Padraic O’Malley, who are liquidators of three Wu-controlled companies, claim he had engaged in fraudulent and/or reckless trading and had transferred assets of the companies to related companies and in some cases to himself.
It is alleged he failed to keep proper books and records, breached his fiduciary duties and was guilty of misfeasance.
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The liquidators say that based on investigations to date Mr Wu left creditors of the trading companies, as well as Revenue and trade creditors, unpaid in many instances. Instead, it is claimed, money that was the property of the companies, was used to pay the liabilities of other companies in a manner that benefited Mr Wu.
The liquidators have sought that Mr Wu swear an affidavit as to what he knew about the affairs of the companies and directions were given by the Commercial Court as to when that should take place.
On Thursday, David Whelan SC, for the liquidators, told the court Mr Wu had not complied with the directions as the businessman said a reconciliation exercise was being done to “work out where the money was gone”.
However, counsel said, there was nothing stopping Mr Wu from swearing an affidavit now to say what he knows about companies that he was in control of. The reconciliation exercise was separate but if the court was to grant an extension of time for him to comply with directions, the time should be short, counsel said.
Eoin Clifford SC, for Mr Wu, said while there were 10 respondent companies it involved 65 firms whose affairs had to be reconciled before his client could swear an affidavit.
Counsel said that work should be completed in the first week of April and “we would have all the information we need in terms of filing an affidavit,” he said.
Asked by Mr Justice Sanfey what he thought of Mr Welan’s suggestion that there should be an affidavit sworn now and another later when the reconciliation exercise was complete, Mr Clifford said it would be a matter of weeks between swearing one affidavit and another and this would not be the best use of court time.
The judge said he appreciated what counsel was saying but if there was to be one affidavit filed, Mr Wu must state why he considered the reconciliation exercise was necessary.
A “before and after affidavit” is unwieldy but the liquidators are entitled to know why this exercise was necessary, he said.
“I won’t tolerate any further delay in this”, the judge said before adjourning the matter to next month.
The respondent companies are Castor Ventures Ltd, of which Mr Kirby is the official liquidator. Mr Kirby is also joint voluntary liquidator with Mr O’Malley, of JW Accountants, of the Clifton Court Hotel Ltd while Mr O’Malley is also voluntary liquidator of NCR Property Ltd.
Those three companies, along with ten others named in the liquidators’ proceedings, are all controlled by Guoqing Wu, otherwise known as Colm Wu, Guo Qing Wu, Colm Guoqing Wu and Wu Guoqing.
