The High Court granted the Director of Corporate Enforcement until 28 July 2011 to deal with material seized during investigations into Anglo Irish Bank, refusing the six-month extension sought. Mr Justice Kelly said he expected substantial progress by then and would require more detailed updates if another extension were requested.
The application concerned material obtained under District Court warrants issued in February, March and September 2009 using an extended power of seizure. It was the Director’s sixth application of this kind. A previous extension had been made on 9 November 2010. The Director also sought an order covering potentially legally privileged material.
The investigations, conducted by the Director and the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation, covered five issues: financial assistance allegedly provided to help people buy Anglo shares; loans to former directors and the alleged warehousing of some loans through Irish Nationwide Building Society; a back-to-back deposit arrangement with Irish Life and Permanent Group; a loan to an Anglo director; and possible false or misleading information in public statements. The judgment described these matters as investigations and potential breaches, not findings of wrongdoing.
The court was told that files on several issues had been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions in December 2010, but the Director’s evidence did not explain what had happened to those files since. For the share-related investigation, a 17-volume file of about 8,000 pages had also been sent in March 2011. The court was told that file was about 90% complete, while important interviews and other work remained outstanding. For the investigation into loans to former directors, about 50 witnesses still had to be interviewed in April 2011, despite an earlier estimate that it would be substantially complete by the end of March.
Mr Justice Kelly accepted that the inquiries involved extensive paper and electronic records, uncooperative witnesses and complex work. But he said that more than two years after the first warrant, the investigation was continuing without a firm completion estimate. He described the progress as unsatisfactory and criticised the inaccuracy of earlier time estimates.
The court exercised its discretion to extend the period for dealing with the material, but set 28 July 2011 as the deadline instead of granting six months. It expected a fuller account of progress, particularly concerning material sent to the DPP in December 2010, and more accurate estimates of when the investigations would finish. The judgment did not decide whether any offence had occurred.