Former Independent News and Media executives Gavin O’Reilly and Karl Brophy have settled a claim for damages against the company and its former chairman, Leslie Buckley, over an unlawful breach of their data when Denis O’Brien was main shareholder in the business.
The deal comes as new information emerges about the legal battle over the affair between Mediahuis Ireland, as INM is now known, and Mr Buckley, who represented the interests in the company of Mr O’Brien, then reputed to be Ireland’s richest man.
The company has long blamed Mr Buckley for violating the personal data of Mr O’Reilly, Mr Brophy and 17 other people including journalists, company executives, Moriarty tribunal lawyers and public relations consultants. He has always denied any wrongdoing.
In private correspondence seen by The Irish Times, the company went further than in any public statements to question whether the unlawful data interrogation was carried out for Mr O’Brien’s benefit.
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“This also raises the issue of whether the searching was conducted for and on behalf of the major shareholder of lNM and for his personal benefit,” said company solicitors McCann FitzGerald in a previously unreported letter from May 2018 to Mr Buckley’s representatives, A&L Goodbody.
That letter was sent days before the INM initiated a court action against the former chairman over the data breach, which he has pledged to “robustly” defend.
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The letter was subsequently opened in a separate case when Mr Buckley tried without success to quash a High Court inspection into the company. Later it was obtained by Mr O’Reilly and Mr Brophy in their proceedings.
The settlement of that action is understood to include several hundred thousand euro for each man in respect of claimed damages. It is also understood to include several hundred thousand euro in respect of their legal fees.
“Karl Brophy and Gavin O’Reilly are very pleased to confirm that their High Court proceedings against Mediahuis Ireland Group Ltd and Leslie Buckley have been compromised on satisfactory terms,” they said in a statement.
The company acknowledged the deal: “Mediahuis Ireland is pleased to confirm that it has reached agreement with Karl Brophy and Gavin O’Reilly over their historical claims against Independent News & Media.”
It added: “Mediahuis is happy to have resolved these legacy issues which were inherited as part of the INM acquisition. The terms of settlement are strictly confidential. Mediahuis has no further comment to add in relation to this matter.”
The agreement is the latest twist in a long-running scandal that has raised sharp questions over Mr Buckley’s chairmanship after Mr O’Brien wrested control of the company from Sir Anthony O’Reilly, the father of Gavin O’Reilly.
[ INM inspectors told Denis O’Brien knew about ‘data search’ ]
There was no immediate comment from the spokesman for Mr O’Brien on the company’s claims about Mr Buckley. Mr O’Brien incurred a loss of more than €400 million when he sold his INM shares to Mediahuis of Belgium in 2019.
Mr Buckley’s spokesman also declined to answer questions about the company’s claims, saying comment was not appropriate because of the court inspection. He also declined comment on the O’Reilly/Brophy settlement.
Although Mr Buckley always claimed the data breach occurred during an exercise to cut costs, the McCann FitzGerald letter shows the company rejected such explanations and said there was an “ulterior motive” for removing data from the company.
“It now appears that your client was willing to place his own personal interests ahead of the interests of the company of which he was chairman to its substantial detriment,” the letter said.
“It appears that the data-searching exercise was not for the purpose stated by your client, but for an ulterior purpose; that it involved extensive searching against INM data for information relating to 19 specified individuals, none of whom bore any direct relation to the cost-cutting exercise for which your client has repeatedly stated the data was collected and searched; and that your client received regular updates on the searching exercise from individuals and entities whose involvement he did not disclose.”
