The official who looks after bankrupts’ affairs is seeking to have the bankruptcy period of a Co Westmeath businessman extended over an alleged lack of cooperation and concerns about assets transfers.
The business affairs of Patrick J Daly include an investment in a property in Panama in 2006 that was lost through fraud, and which featured in a murder trial in the Central American country in which the fraudsters were convicted of murdering a local politician after he discovered what they were up to.
The official assignee, Chris Lehane, is seeking an extension of the bankruptcy of Mr Daly, who resides at Ballinagore House, and who was made a bankrupt in November 2015 at the request of the Bank of Ireland. His wife, Anne Daly, was made a bankrupt in June 2016.
Mr Lehane has concerns about the arm’s length nature of transactions in 2012 involving Ballinagore House as well as shares in a company called Star Alliance which owns property in Ballinagore, and an interest in an apartment in Marbella, Spain. Mr Daly rejects the concerns.
Petitioned
Bank of Ireland secured a judgment order for €4.43 million against Mr Daly in 2012, and subsequently petitioned to have him adjudicated a bankrupt. It remains in dispute with him. A statement of affairs for Mr Daly showed assets of approximately €1 million and debts of €14.7 million.
Ballinagore House was, according to Mr Lehane in court documents seen by The Irish Times, sold for €100,000 at a time when Mr Lehane estimates its value was €500,000. The conditions of sale included the right of Mr and Ms Daly to continue living in the house, and their daughter being allowed stay there until she finished her education.
The property was bought by Devon Anne McNeill who Mr Daly has said is a friend of his brother Ciarán, who lives in the US. Mr Lehane said the transaction was apparently negotiated over the telephone and without correspondence.
Ms McNeill also goes by her pre-marriage name of Devon Anne Ralls, and was a partner with Mr Daly in the investment in Panama, along with others.
In his affidavit, Mr Lehane referred to the fact that La Prensa newspaper in Panama had mentioned Ms Ralls as a witness in relation to a criminal complaint linked to the investment.
The articles in question concern a 2013 trial linked to the murder of local politician Dario Fernández by persons involved in a fraud whereby foreign investors were cheated of money they thought they were investing in Panamanian property.
Investors
One of the investment companies affected was Sonadora Heights Inc, in which both Mr Daly and Ms Ralls were investors. Ms Ralls was to be a witness, but it is not known if she gave evidence.
Mr Lehane said shares in a company called Star Alliance were sold for €23,000 at a time when, he said, it had tangible assets worth substantially more. The interest in the Spanish apartment was sold to Mr Daly’s brother Brendan in discharge of loans that Mr Lehane wants to see vouched.
Mr Daly, in his affidavit, said he was a successful self-employed building contractor up to 2009 and banked with AIB and Bank of Ireland. He worked with his now estranged wife, Anne. He moved to the UK in 2015 and initially did not co-operate with Mr Lehane’s office, but now wants to co-operate, he said.
It was only when he returned to Ireland last year that he learned from his wife that he had been adjudged a bankrupt. “However I must candidly state at that point I simply did not care. I was impecunious.”
He said he is currently relying financially on his children and his brother Bernard. He said the sale of shares in Star Alliance was to a company called Julpa Properties and the funds involved were used to pay off bank debt. The funds came from Bernard. Star Alliance had an interest in an equestrian centre adjacent to Ballinagore House.
He said he got involved in the Panamanian venture in 2006 when one of his co-investors said Panama was “the next big thing”. He did travel to Panama to sign documents in the offices of the investors’ law firm, the “now infamous Mossack Fonseca”. Mossack Fonseca is the firm whose leaked files were behind the global Panama Papers disclosures.
‘Elaborate fraud’
The Panama venture, Mr Daly said, turned out to be “an elaborate fraud, the precise details of which I was never able to get to the bottom of”.
He invested €200,000, which at the time was not “a catastrophic or life changing sum for [me ] to lose”. The value of the investment was now zero.
Mr Daly said he had been dealt with “very harshly” by Bank of Ireland and his financial difficulties had led to the break-up of his marriage. His wife still sometimes lived at Ballinagore House. It was sold in 2012, for market value, he said, and a professional valuation was secured at the time. It was sold to a “long-standing friend” but in a genuine sale. He said he had no hidden assets and rejected Mr Lehane’s contention that his estate was “relatively complex”.
In an interview with Mr Lehane earlier this year, Mr Daly, referring to the Panamanian investment, said the land he invested in “was stolen by a group that included the government and involved everyone out there”.
A date for the hearing of the petition to extend Mr Daly’s period of bankruptcy has yet to be set.
