In a joint statement issued today, Harlequin and the Ames family who own the company, confirmed it had agreed and out-of-court settlement with Wilkins Kennedy LLP and former employees Jeremy Newman and Martin MacDonald.
According to the joint statement, the action arose from a website which alleged that the business operated by Harlequin was a fraudulent scheme. The statement added that the terms of the settlement are confidential, but “the offending website has been closed down and will not be reopened”.
The statement added: “Wilkins Kennedy and Mr MacDonald deny any involvement in authorising, approving or setting up the website or its content. Neither Mr MacDonald nor Wilkins Kennedy have asserted in these proceedings that the allegations were true.”
However, Newman admitted he set up and operated the website “and regrets his actions in doing so. Furthermore, the statement said Newman “did not intend to suggest, and has not asserted in these proceedings, that the business operated by Harlequin was in fact a fraudulent scheme”.
Both MacDonald and Newman were also found in August to have been “in league with” a former contractor of Harlequin who was found to have “fraudulently misappropriated” more than $13m.
At the end of July, the High Court of Ireland found Padraig O’Halloran, a former ICE Group contractor for Harlequin’s Buccament Bay Resort in the Caribbean, guilty of misappropriating the money from more than $50m which was sent to ICE Group for the resort’s construction.
During the case, it was revealed that both MacDonald and Newman who were working for the top-25 accountancy firm Wilkins Kennedy at the time, helped O’Halloran in his deception of Harlequin.
The judge found that MacDonald, a Wilkins Kennedy partner at the firm’s Southend office, and Newman, a tax manager at the company’s Egham office, were, despite being the accountants for Harlequin, in fact “in league with O’Halloran”.
The judge said: “I am satisfied that the evidence establishes that by the spring of 2010, MacDonald was working in league with the first named defendant (O’Halloran) and he had a serious conflict of interest in continuing to act for Harlequin.”
