02-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
Final cost of INM High Court inspection was €5.82m
The bill includes €481,000 of legal and other costs in 2024, the year the long running corporate probe ended with the publication of an 868-page report. It does not include costs to other parties involved in the case.
The costs include fees paid to Irish barrister Sean Gillane SC and UK solicitor Robert Fleck, who as inspectors investigated a series of claims including that Leslie Buckley, as INM's then chairman, acted improperly in ways to benefit businessman Denis O'Brien, who was then a 29.9pc shareholder in INM.
Concerns raised at the time the report was published suggesting the final cost to taxpayers might multiply proved wide of the mark, according to Ian Drennan, CEO of the Corporate Enforcement Authority (CEA).
He was writing in the introduction to the agency's annual report for last year which was published on July 2nd.
'In the immediate aftermath of the publication of the Inspectors' Report, it was suggested in media commentary that the Inspection might ultimately cost the State in excess of €40m. The actual cost of the Inspection was €5.82m and no additional expenditures or liabilities that might increase that amount in any meaningful way have eventuated since that time,' he wrote.
The CEA took the decision not to bring any enforcement action against any of the people who's actions at the then stock market listed INM had been subject to the inspection.
However, in his report, Ian Drennan said that would not mean his agency is less likely to seek a similar process in future in relation to another company where it believed its powers of investigation fell short of what was required to investigate potential corporate wrongdoing.
'Should circumstances arise in the future in which the CEA were to take the view that an application to the High Court for the appointment of Inspectors was warranted, the CEA would not hesitate to do so,' he wrote.
The final inspectors report included important lessons on the standards of governance expected by the law, he said.
The six-year investigation by High Court inspectors into allegations of wrongdoing at Independent News and Media (INM) ultimately found its former chairman. Leslie Buckley, did pass confidential information to Denis O'Brien in a way that was not compliant with the company's policies and the terms of a memorandum he signed in 2016 but that he did not break company law.
The probe was launched after allegations made by INM's then former CEO Robert Pitt, and Ryan Preston, its chief finance officer, about Mr Buckley's conduct as INM chairman.
The inspectors' report made some criticisms of Mr Buckley's conduct but did not uphold the allegations that he broke company law or had tried to use INM resources to benefit Mr O'Brien to the detriment of INM's other shareholders.
