Ireland

Investigations into the financial affairs of disgraced former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm have cost almost $1m (€0.75m), the Irish Independent reported today. Lawyers hired to probe the banker's cash have submitted legal bills for over 1,500 hours of work, which involved disentangling a web of asset transfers. Their work also included selling some of his property assets and preparing for his bankruptcy trial, which was held last May. A decision is now awaited from a U.S. judge on whether he can emerge from bankruptcy debt free.

Compensation payments totalling €10 million have been paid to more than 3,100 depositors of Berehaven Credit Union, the Central Bank has said. The credit union in Cork closed its doors last week and a liquidator was appointed following High Court orders issued on behalf of the Central Bank, the Irish Times reported. Cheques have now been posted to over 85 per cent of the credit union’s members. The bank said remaining deposits are being progressed “as quickly as possible” and it is expected that further payments will be made shortly.

Ireland could save up to €375 million a year in interest costs on our national debt if it can secure an agreement to refinance €15 billion worth of IMF loans from the Troika bailout programme, the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said Monday, the Irish Times reported. Speaking at the launch of the National Treasury Management Agency’s annual report, Mr Noonan said about €18 billion of the €22 billion owed by Ireland to the IMF is financed at a cost of just under 5 per cent a year. This compares with a rate of 2.3 per cent currently for Irish 10-year bonds.

Ireland has “no chance” of securing a deal on its legacy bank debt, one of the most influential figures in German politics has told the Irish Times. Joachim Pfeiffer, who is the economic policy spokesman for the parliamentary group of the ruling Christian Democrats, said the euro zone’s new bailout fund had not been established for nor would be it used for retroactive bank recapitalisation. “There is no chance Ireland’s legacy assets will be paid by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

The loophole that allowed Irish banks not to disclose their property losses during the crash has finally been closed, the Irish Times reported. Under new international accounting rules, which will take effect in 2018, banks will be obliged to provision for souring loans much earlier. The Irish banking meltdown in 2008 on the back of the collapse of Lehman Bros in the US highlighted how little capital banks held to cover a slump in the value of the assets on their books, forcing the public to bail out many lenders.

The Central Bank has secured High Court orders winding up a credit union in Cork with 3,500 members, the Irish Times reported. The President of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, today appointed insolvency practitioners Jim Hamilton and David O’Connor of BDO Ireland as provisional liquidators of Berehaven Credit Union, Castletownbere. Mr Justice Kearns said he was satisfied to appoint the provisional liquidators. Paul Gallagher SC , for the Central Bank, had earlier told the judge an orderly orderly wind up of Berehaven Credit Union was “in the the public interest”.

A defect in the personal insolvency legislation that gives banks extra powers to vote down debt deals will be fixed, officials have pledged. The Department of Justice insisted the change to the personal insolvency legislation will be given priority when the Dail returns in the autumn, The Independent reported. But it emerged at the weekend that the Government has known about a flaw in the insolvency law since last April. A briefing note provided to new Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald has informed her of an urgent need to amend the Personal Insolvency Act 2012.

The Government is planning new legislation to protect borrowers whose loans were sold to unregulated financial entities in the wake of the crash, the Irish Times reported. Up to 10,000 mortgages are now controlled by institutions which are under no obligation to act in accordance with the Central Bank’s code of conduct on mortgage arrears. The code obliges financial institutions to act within certain parameters when it comes to dealing with problem loans. It also affords borrowers complaints and appeals procedures should they feel unfairly treated.

The Central Bank has warned of a potential mortgage arrears time bomb as the high number of interest-only loans taken out during the boom revert to full-repayment arrangements, the Irish Times reported. While interest-only arrangements have been widely used as a means of forbearance in the current arrears crisis, just over 8 per cent of the total mortgage loan book - equating to €7.4 billion - were originally issued on an interest-only basis.

When the Insolvency Service of Ireland (ISI) came into being over a year ago, the then minister for justice, Alan Shatter, said it was the “light at the end of the tunnel” for tens of thousands of distressed borrowers who were no longer able to service their debts as a result of years of reckless borrowing and reckless lending, coupled with the worst recession in the history of the State, the Irish Times reported in an analysis.