Both Irish and US officials overseeing the bankruptcy of the property developer Seán Dunne have said they are not happy with the level of co-operation he is giving them, according to the transcript of Dunne’s first interview with the official overseeing his Irish bankruptcy.
Dunne filed for bankruptcy in the US in March 2013 and was declared a bankrupt in Ireland four months later, but he gave his first interview to the official assignee in bankruptcy, Christopher Lehane, in June 2016.
The transcript of that interview is now available in court papers lodged with the Examiner’s Office in Dublin.
At the outset of the interview, Lehane questioned Dunne as to where he lived and expressed scepticism about the answer.
Dunne gave as his address as a property in Greenwich, Connecticut, but when asked if he was still living there he said no, that he did not live there all the time and spent a lot of time in New York with his son.
“I need to know where you actually live,” Lehane said.
“My principal place where I reside, live and work is America,” Dunne replied.
“America?” said Lehane. “So I have to write to America?”
No, Dunne said, the address in Greenwich.
“We know it’s up for sale,” Lehane said. “We have pictures that there’s no furniture in it. I mean, how can you look me in the face and say something that we know is simply not true?”
Lehane asked where Dunne's wife, Gayle Killilea, and the couple's children, were living. Dunne said they did not live with him all the time, but their address was private.
“They have suffered a tremendous amount of harassment from Nama [the National Asset and Management Agency] and Nama’s PR machine, where photographers have been sent to our house in Greenwich. I have been photographed with my children going to Mass and coming from Mass. I have been photographed with my children buying them ice-cream in Greenwich, okay.”
Inconsistency
When Dunne said that where his wife lived was not relevant, Lehane replied that it was, because there was an inconsistency between what Dunne and his wife were saying. She had said she lived at the address in Greenwich, Lehane said.
“I don’t think she says she still lives [there],” Dunne said.
When Lehane said she did say that, Dunne said he was not there to answer for his wife.
“She spends some time there [Greenwich] this summer,” he said. ” We will be spending time there. I said she doesn’t spend time there with the children because they don’t go to school in the locality. They have had to relocate because of harassment.”
Dunne was declared a bankrupt three years ago. Lehane expressed the view that Dunne was wrong in his view that because he had (unsuccessfully) appealed his adjudication in Ireland to the Supreme Court, a stay had applied to his obligation to co-operate. Lehane said it was not the case that Dunne had already explained everything to the trustee overseeing his bankruptcy in the US.
“I’m here to co-operate and to answer anything,” Dunne said. “I’m here to fill in any voids.”
Lehane said the US trustee, Richard Coan, had said his office needed "substantial additional information" about Dunne's affairs.
Dunne said he had answered all the questions that were asked in the US.
Lehane said he had read the documents associated with the US bankruptcy.
“I have never seen such obfuscation,” he said. “Most of the time you were chiding the counsel. I mean, if you read it again, some of it is, you turned up with no information. You seemed to know very little about the information, which made me very apprehensive about today, about the extent to which we were going to get quality information.”
“You can absolutely take it,” Lehane added, “that Richard Coan, if you have spoken to him, is not satisfied that you have provided him with all the information at all.”
“Well, that is news to me because he never told me that,” said Dunne.
Questioned extensively
Dunne was questioned extensively about an agreement he says he came to with his wife to transfer to her the profits associated with a substantial proportion of his assets. The agreement was, Dunne has said, made in 2005 and executed over the years to 2008, during which time assets worth about €62 million were transferred.
Dunne said that, in 2005-2007, he “would have sold over €700 million worth of property and would have acquired maybe about the same again when you take in Jurys and the D4 hotels, Berkeley Court and Hume House. So, you know, we were a reasonably sized developer in the day.”
He had given his wife €3 million and this had gone towards the purchase of an apartment in Geneva in 2007, when they were moving to Switzerland for tax reasons.
At the time he had been advised that his assets could have future earnings and value of up to €1.5 billion. His name appeared on the deeds for the apartment and on the joint Swiss account into which the €3 million was transferred. This had occurred on the basis of advice as part of their move to Switzerland. His name was taken off the joint account in 2008, and from the deed in early 2009.
Lehane asked why no lawyers were involved with the 2005 agreement Dunne said he had entered into with his wife.
“It is an odd situation that someone would go on holidays and would feel obliged to do an incredibly significant document while on holidays when you had the wealth of the best legalese in Ireland acting for you,” Lehane said. “Is that not an odd situation?”
“Far from it. Absolutely not,” Dunne said.
“Given how significant it was?” Lehane asked.
“It wasn’t significant,” Dunne said. “In the overall context, this was less than 20 per cent of my worth on the day. It wasn’t significant.”
Lehane said he was still not accepting the document itself, but on the basis that it was executed when claimed, it meant “that you choose to go on holiday to start drafting something for her that is [for] her financial stability. You know it’s mind-boggling. I find it very, very odd.”
It’s incredible, Lehane added.
“Well, what do you find incredible about it?” Dunne asked.
Lehane said he has been advised that the document was completely unenforceable.
GAYLE KILLILEA ‘NOT PREPARED TO SIT BACK’: SEÁN DUNNE SPEAKS OF MARITAL TENSION OVER PAYMENTS TO EX-WIFE
Seán Dunne said there were problems in Switzerland in the 2009 and 2010 years and tension with his wife over the size of the payments he was making to his former wife.
Gayle Killilea “wasn’t prepared to sit back” and see his ex-wife rank ahead of her, he said.
Dunne was declared a bankrupt in 2013 but gave his first interview to the official assignee in bankruptcy, Chris Lehane, in June of this year.
Lehane said the statement of affairs submitted to a US court after the couple had moved there and Dunne had filed for bankruptcy, stated that his wife had a $44 million claim against him arising from an agreement they had made. Dunne said he had received legal advice in Switzerland at the time about the agreement.
This was a “consensual settlement at a time when Dunne had huge liabilities”, Lehane said.
“In your American statement of affairs, [you] purport to say that there [is] some sort of contractual obligation that should have equality with people who actually lent you money. Did you really believe what you put in your statement of affairs was realistic?” Lehane asked Dunne.
“Well, my statement of affairs was to reflect what my debts were and what my assets were. So yes, I do believe it was correct and realistic to put it down. If you have an issue with it, you are entitled to your point,” Dunne said.
Dunne told Lehane that he was receiving $10,000 (€9,175) a month from US property company Mountbrook USA, and €1,000 a month (€918) from Irish property company Ambrako. He spent approximately $10,000 a year on personal items, such as clothes, and had access to a credit card for work expenses.
He said he has, over the past three years, visited Ireland about three times a year and England about six to eight times a year.
