The Court of Appeal rejected Michael P. Fingleton’s challenges to a Central Bank inquiry, ruling that the bank was entitled to accept and publish Irish Nationwide Building Society’s (INBS) admissions and that the evidence did not justify stopping the inquiry over delay.
In a supplemental judgment delivered on 24 April 2018, Ms Justice Irvine addressed the settlement and delay grounds of Fingleton’s appeal. She agreed with the separate judgment delivered by Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan and concluded that the entire appeal should be dismissed.
The Central Bank began investigating INBS in 2010 over its conduct as a financial services provider between 1 August 2004 and 30 September 2008. In July 2015, it notified Fingleton that it would hold an inquiry into whether INBS had committed suspected prescribed contraventions and whether people involved in its management, including Fingleton, had participated.
Days later, INBS settled with the bank, acknowledged multiple breaches and received a €5 million fine, the maximum available. Fingleton argued that accepting and publicising the settlement before the inquiry compromised its fairness and showed bias or prejudgment. He also argued that he should have been invited to make submissions before the settlement was published.
The court held that the law entitled INBS to acknowledge the contraventions and required the Central Bank to accept that acknowledgment. It also found the bank was required to publish the sanction and prescribed particulars. The judgment said Fingleton had no right to be consulted about INBS’s admissions, and the court found no evidence that his participation in the inquiry had been prejudged.
A key limit is that the settlement and INBS’s admissions will not be admissible evidence in the inquiry. The Central Bank must establish the alleged breaches afresh before the inquiry can determine whether Fingleton participated in them. The judgment said he remained entitled to take appropriate action if his right to a fair and impartial hearing came under threat during the inquiry.
On delay, Fingleton argued that the inquiry began about 11 years after some matters under investigation and that his age, deteriorating eyesight and the volume of documents impaired his ability to defend himself. The court upheld the High Court’s conclusion that the bank had not caused undue or blameworthy delay, citing the scale of its investigation, including its review of about 110,000 documents. It also found insufficient evidence that Fingleton’s age or eyesight left him unable to defend himself, including with legal representation.