US bank Goldman Sachs is pursuing accountant Alan Hynes and his wife Noreen for more than €8 million in bubble-era property debt.
Mr Hynes was recently barred from the Institute of Chartered Accountants following complaints from investors who lost more than €18 million on his property ventures.
On Thursday lawyers for the Goldman Sachs-controlled Ennis Property Finance told Ms Justice Caroline Costello in the High Court that by last November, the couple's liabilities had reached €8.2 million.
Bank of Scotland Ireland advanced €10 million in six different loans to the couple between 2003 and early 2007 to fund the purchase and development of homes in Wexford and Dublin.
They began to miss repayments in late 2007 and halted them altogether in 2008, when an attempt by Mr Hynes to refinance the debt with Bank of Ireland failed, following the collapse of the Republic's financial system.
In 2009, following a meeting with the couple, Bank of Scotland appointed Declan Taite of Farrell Grant Sparks, who had initially been negotiating on the Hynes behalf, as receiver to the properties.
He recouped €2.9 million but the lender continued to pursue the couple for the balance. Goldman took over the debt last year when it bought a group of underwater property loans from Bank of Scotland.
Ennis Property Finance, set up by the US bank to manage the debt, is seeking judgement against couple.
Ms Hynes represented both in court on Thursday, Mr Hynes was not there. Ennis’s lawyers indicated the couple say they did not receive the money, and that it went instead to their solicitors, Séamus Maguire & Company’s client account.
Benefited
However,
David Morrow
, a former Bank of Scotland Ireland loan manager who dealt with the defendants, said that they benefited from the money, even if the bills for their property dealings were paid from the law firm’s account.
“Either way I am very confident that the borrowers received the money either directly or indirectly,” he told the court.
Mr Morrow also said that he believed that Ms Hynes had signed a letter for a €6.95 million loan given to the couple in March 2006. She claims that she never signed this document, but that it subsequently turned up with her signature.
The banker told the court that he gave the unsigned letter to Mr Hynes following a function in Portmarnock, Dublin in late March and that the defendant returned it him several days later.
While he admitted that he could not remember checking to see if both Mr and Mrs Hynes had signed it, he explained that the bank’s operations division would also have confirmed that both had done so before advancing the money. “The bank did have those checks and balances,” he said.
