Denis O’Brien is taking legal action against a PR and lobbying firm which he claims is involved in a conspiracy against him.
The telecoms and media tycoon has applied for a court order to search the premises of Red Flag for evidence that he alleges will prove their staff conspired to defame him and his businesses.
Mr O’Brien said that an anonymous person had supplied him with a dossier of files that he believes was compiled or authored by Red Flag, which has offices in Dublin, London, and Brussels.
The PR company’s executives include Gavin O’Reilly, the former chief executive of Independent News and Media (INM), and Karl Brophy, a former senior executive with INM, who departed shortly after Mr O’Brien’s associates took control of the publishing company.
Mr O’Brien, Ireland’s richest man, said he was given the dossier last Friday, days after he cancelled the planned flotation of Digicel, his mobile network business, on the New York stock exchange.
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In a statement yesterday, the billionaire said he was forced to take action after he became aware of “a concerted campaign which involved the circulation of very serious and incorrect information about him and his business interests”.
Red Flag is fully defending the case.
On Wednesday Mr O’Brien received a temporary order from Judge Nicholas Kearns, the president of the High Court, preventing any reporting of his action against Red Flag. The president of the court also issued orders preventing the company and its staff from destroying or tampering with any of the files that Mr O’Brien alleged it had on its computers.
Mr O’Brien’s action is against Red Flag and five of its staff: Mr O’Reilly, Mr Brophy, Seamus Conboy, the company chairman, Brid Murphy, an account manager, and Kevin Hiney, an account executive.
A list of the 92 files allegedly contained in the dossier was handed into court. It contained 82 articles about Mr O’Brien and Digicel published by various media organisations in Ireland and abroad.
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The dossier allegedly contained files called: Who is Denis O’Brien?, Denis O’Brien IPO experience, and The Moriarty Tribunal Explainer. Other files included the judgment in Mr O’Brien’s case against RTE earlier this year and a transcript of a Dail debate on the sale of Siteserv, the construction services company, to Mr O’Brien.
Among the alleged documents is a file called Draft speech for Colm Keaveney TD. Yesterday the Fianna Fail TD did not return calls. Mr Keaveney spoke in the Dail debate on Siteserv on May 6. In his speech he said Mr O’Brien’s winning of a state mobile phone licence in 1996 was the “biggest act of corruption in the state”. The Galway TD went on to say that “history is repeating itself here tonight”.
The reporting injunction on Mr O’Brien’s case against Red Flag was lifted yesterday morning after Michael Cush, SC, senior counsel for Mr O’Brien, said it was no longer needed as all of the defendants had been served with the High Court’s preservation order relating to the files.
Mr Cush said his client had “serious concerns” that the defendants would not abide by the court’s order to preserve the documents and computers. He said for this reason he wanted his application to be heard urgently.
Mr O’Brien wanted his computer experts to examine the files and computers to establish who commissioned the dossier, who disseminated it and who received it. Mr O’Brien is seeking damages for “unlawful conspiracy” to damage him and his businesses, and for defamation.
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Mr Cush said that although there was a defamation claim the case may not be suitable for a jury trial.
Given what Mr O’Brien alleged about the defendants engaging in an unlawful conspiracy against him, Mr Cush said his client had concerns about the court relying on the “good faith” of the defendants not to destroy or tamper with evidence.
Michael Collins, SC, the senior counsel for Red Flag and its staff, said Mr O’Brien’s suggestion that the defendants would not obey the court’s orders was “unwarranted” and without foundation.
The lawyer said that Mr O’Brien appeared to have been concerned about what he saw as a media campaign against him so he commissioned a private investigator, and was given the dossier on a USB stick. He added that he did not see why the case was urgent.
Mr Collins said that among the 16 orders Mr O’Brien sought from the court was to be allowed to send a “search party” into Red Flag’s office and to be allowed to seize material. He said Red Flag needed time for an IT consultant to look at the issue and material. He said the gardai might also need to be consulted.
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Judge Colm MacEochaidh, who heard the matter yesterday, said the parties should return to court at 2pm on Friday. He confirmed that orders preventing the destruction of any documents or files relating to the dossier remained in place.