A Clare man acquitted in the UK on charges connected with an alleged £100 million (€143 million) VAT "carousel" fraud has asked the High Court to discharge court orders freezing his accounts.
Lawyers for Dylan Creaven applied for the freezing orders to be lifted on grounds of alleged non-disclosure by the Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) of a large number of matters to the High Court at the time the orders were granted in 2002.
The Cab has denied the claims and argued all "material" matters were disclosed to the court when the freezing orders were applied for.
The hearing of the application concluded yesterday before Mr Justice Frank Clarke and judgment was reserved to May 5th next.
Mr Creaven was arrested in London on November 19th, 2002.
After being remanded in custody for almost a year, he was freed on bail on charges in connection with the alleged VAT fraud which, it was claimed, involved high-value computer components and the alleged movement of those goods between companies to generate VAT payments that were not declared to the UK authorities.
Mr Creaven denied the claims and he has since been acquitted on all 28 charges in court proceedings in the UK.
On November 18th, 2002, the day before Mr Creaven's arrest, District Judge David Anderson issued 12 search warrants for Mr Creaven's home at Woodstock View, Ennis, the premises of three firms, including one of Mr Creaven's firms and the premises of an accountant.
Mr Creaven and two of his companies challenged the validity of all 12 warrants.
In late 2004, the Supreme Court struck down five warrants after finding the UK authorities had failed to adhere to UK law when seeking them.
The Supreme Court also quashed six of the other seven warrants on the basis that, when the warrants were issued, Judge Anderson was not sitting in three of the four court districts in respect of which he issued warrants.
Given that both sets of warrants were invalid, the Supreme Court directed that the documents seized on foot of them should be returned to their original owners and not to the Cab.
The court was also critical of the refusal of the Cab and the Chief State Solicitor's office to provide copies of the essential documents used to ground the application for the search warrants to Mr Creaven's solicitors.
Arising from the judgment, the Cab was later ordered to destroy all copies, except one, of documents seized from Mr Creaven. The court also ordered that original documents taken from Mr Creaven's home and office and the offices of an accountant and a solicitor be handed back to their rightful owners.
