Ireland

The Bank of Ireland is seeking to have two relatives of property developer Tom McFeely made bankrupt in Northern Ireland, the Irish Times reported. The move comes just months after Mr McFeely, the developer behind the Priory Hall complex in Dublin, was blocked from emerging from bankruptcy by the Irish Courts. Having failed in an attempt to be made bankrupt in the UK in 2012, Mr McFeely was made a bankrupt in the Republic.

A tax bill for about €150 million, mainly arising from unpaid income tax owed by the former Anglo Irish Bank, is likely to be appealed by the special liquidators to the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, the State-owned entity into which Anglo was subsumed, the Irish Times reported. The massive tax bill, thought to be one of the largest ever submitted to a State- owned body, arises in the main from the interpretation of rules in relation to income tax and straddles the period before and after the former bank was nationalised.

Ireland is to become one of the first countries to introduce measures aimed at ensuring multinationals disclose more information to tax authorities, the Irish Times reported. In the upcoming budget, the Government will introduce moves obliging multinationals to draft country-by-country reports on their global activities, according to sources. If enacted the new rules could affect our biggest corporations, such as CRH, Glanbia, Kerry and Ryanair, as well as major foreign multinationals that have located their global headquarters here over recent years for tax reasons.

Ireland injected more capital into its banks than any other Euro zone country in terms of percentage of GDP, it experienced the highest increase of government debt as a result of its financial support to the banking sector, and it has one of the poorest recovery rates for this financial support, a report from the European Central Bank found on Wednesday, the Irish Times reported.

The State’s bank guarantee from September 2008 was “too generous” and “magnified the fiscal impact of the banking crisis”, said the European Commission’s director general for economic and financial affairs, the Irish Times reported. “At the same time, it is clear that the decision was taken in a very difficult situation characterised by great risks and uncertainty,” Marco Buti told the banking inquiry.

A review of the State’s six pillar banks which found 10 borrowers owed a combined €17.7 billion in September 2008 came as a “very significant” surprise, the Oireachtas banking inquiry has heard, the Irish Times reported. Denis O’Connor, a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers, told the committee the firm was hired by the financial regulator at that time to examine potential problems and liabilities in the banks. The review found that, in the worst-case scenario, the six institutions could lose €10 billion. The cost subsequently transpired to be €64 billion.

Irish mortgage lenders are set to again come under pressure from the Department of Finance over their standard variable rate (SVR) mortgage offerings, which remain substantially higher than EU averages, the Irish Times reported. Minister for Finance Michael Noonan is set to meet with all the banks prior to the October Budget. He will likely ask why there has been no significant movement on lowering SVR mortgages, despite a significantly lower cost of wholesale funding.

The first meeting of the five-person committee of inspection that will oversee the interests of creditors in the liquidation of OCS Operations, the trading arm of Clerys, will take place on Monday at the Dublin offices of KPMG, the Irish Times reported. Concession-holders owed more than €2 million in takings by the bust department store succeeded on Tuesday in gaining three seats on the group. Helen Lynch, owner of Best of Irish Designs, David Jones of Best Menswear and Keith Rogers of shoe retailer Ecco are believed to be the business-owners elected to the body.

Loans to Irish households fell 2.8 per cent in July, new data from the Central Bank has shown, while lending to companies showed a decline of 6.9 per cent year on year, the Irish Times reported. The figures showed household loan repayments exceeded drawdowns by €346 million during the month, continuing a trend seen the previous month, as the number of loans issued for house purchases fell. During July, the number of loans drawn down for consumption and other purchases fell by €99 million.

The private equity fund that backed the buyout of parts of the former Quinn Group last year is poised to swoop on the Irish arm of troubled Dutch engineer, Imtech, saving 700 jobs, the Irish Times reported. The parent of Waterford engineering business, Imtech Suir, confirmed yesterday that it is in talks about a possible sale of the company to US and European investment fund Endless LLP and predicted that a deal would close next week.