THE FORMER CHIEF Executive and Chairman of IBRC, Mike Aynsley and Alan Dukes, have initiated legal action against Independent News & Media.
The executives, who were appointed following the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank, filed documents with the High Court on 21 October following the publication of a number of articles about IBRC’s Statement of Affairs in the Irish Independent.
On 12 October, a day after a Twitter account leaked the now-defunct institution’s Statement of Affairs, the front page headline of the newspaper read: “Inside Anglo: how bankers partied on”.
The details of that article, along with three other that appeared inside the publication, were disputed by Aynsley and Dukes in self-penned pieces two weeks later – after the legal suit for defamation was started.
Both men likened the coverage and commentary by the Irish Independent a fortnight earlier as ‘blaming a fire brigade after they have put out the fire’.
Aynsley said he rejects the suggestion that “post-nationalisation executives of the bank were in any way linked to the past failures of the bank that cost the public tens of billions of euro”.
Addressing specific items that were highlighted by the Irish Independent, the former CEO noted that “a complete set of policies was put in place to eliminate spends such as flowers and golf”.
On the issue of travel expenses that were outlined in the Statement of Affairs, Dukes and Aynsley mentioned the need to travel to Ukraine and Russia, where Seán Quinn (one of Anglo’s largest debtors) holds certain assets.
“You couldn’t run a bank with the type of portfolio IBRC had without people travelling extensively,” wrote Dukes. “To take expenses figures on their own and represent them as ‘splashing out’ is absolutely ludicrous.”
Aynsley continued: ”The suggestion that excesses were being encouraged could not be further from the truth.”
While Dukes confirmed to TheJournal.ie that papers had been filed, he would make no further comment on the matter.
Request for comment from INM had not been responded to at time of publication.
The suits also mentions ‘another’ plaintiff.
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