Seán FitzPatrick acquitted after judge directs jury

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Seán FitzPatrick was acquitted at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court after Judge John Aylmer directed the jury to acquit him on 24 May 2017. The judge said the prosecution had not established a sufficient case to go to the jury.

FitzPatrick had pleaded not guilty to 27 offences under the 1990 Companies Act. They included 22 charges of making a misleading, false or deceptive statement to auditors and five charges of furnishing false information between 2002 and 2007. Earlier in May 2017, the Director of Public Prosecutions withdrew nine of the charges, conceding there was insufficient evidence for them.

The prosecution alleged that loans connected to FitzPatrick were artificially reduced around the bank’s financial year end using short-term loans, and that he concealed their full extent from auditors. After his arrest in 2010, FitzPatrick denied seeking to conceal the loans and told detectives that the refinancing brought no financial benefit to him, his family or the bank.

On 23 May 2017, Judge Aylmer criticised the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement investigation, saying witness coaching and the shredding of documents created a real risk of an unfair trial. The following day, prosecuting barrister Dominic McGinn said the DPP was dropping six previously severed charges of alleged false accounting. Lawyers for the DPP said FitzPatrick would face no further criminal charges and there were no other outstanding matters.