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| Seán FitzPatrick, a chartered accountant, joined Anglo Irish Bank in 1980 and served as Chief Executive Officer from 1986 to January 2005. He resigned as Chairman of the bank on Dec 18, 2008 when news of the hiding of large directors' loans each financial year end, became public knowledge . Anglo Irish Bank disclosed last January, that the total level of loans to directors stood at €179m.
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The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (ICAI) has called for changes to the Companies Bill 2009 which is being introduced today in the Seanad.
Commenting on the Bill, ICAI Director of Technical Policy and Representation, Aidan Lambe, described the approach taken to the important issue of the disclosure of directors’ loans in financial institutions as likely to give rise to ‘difficulties of interpretation and practical problems’.
“Critically, as drafted, the proposed legislation does not appear to achieve its stated aim and conflicts with the approach taken by the Financial Regulator as recently as March. The particular problem relates to defining appropriately ‘connected parties’ for disclosure of transactions in financial statements.
ICAI, along with other accountancy bodies in the Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies – Ireland, has proposed to the Minister that there should be two types of connected parties. The first, which would be required to be disclosed individually, would be defined as those who could be deemed to be extensions of the director himself like:
A spouse or dependant child
Entities controlled by a director, spouse or dependant child
A partnership where the director is jointly or severally liable for the debts of the partnership
A trustee of any trust.
The second type of connected person, whose loans could be declared in aggregate, might include parents, brother, sister, non-dependant children and bodies corporate controlled by these people.”
