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 31-day trial, it was found that more than $2m was sent to Ireland to pay for items including a lavish wedding. The court also heard large sums were used to fund luxury purchases such as a $1.5m private jet, a racecourse in St Lucia, a car franchise business and renovations to a rented property on the Sandy Lane estate – an exclusive resort in Barbados.
Furthermore, it was revealed that two accountants working for top-25 accountancy firm Wilkins Kennedy helped O’Halloran in his deception of Harlequin.
The judge found that Martin MacDonald, a Wilkins Kennedy partner at the firm’s Southend office, and Jeremy 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.”
Meanwhile, the court was also told that during 2009 and 2010, O’Halloran did “very little construction work” at the Buccament Bay Resort, “masking this from Harlequin with the assistance of MacDonald and Newman”.
According to a statement released by Harlequin, “the gentlemen were seeking new work at a critical time in the construction build, spending Harlequin’s construction funds travelling to various destinations”.
On this, the judge said: “The first named defendant (O’Halloran) and his senior advisors (Newman and MacDonald) travelled to the UK, Jordan, Romania and Morocco canvassing new business. It appears a ticket was bought for MacDonald, but that he had not ultimately travelled with other members of the party.”
As reported, trouble started for Harlequin started in January, when the Financial Services Authority issued an alert on the company, and on 1 March, contacted SIPP providers, asking them to say whether they have any clients invested in the firm, which it said is not FSA regulated.
Media interest was piqued after the BBC postponed a Panorama episode which was to have included a look at Harlequin, and the producer of the show was first suspended, over bribery allegations, and later resigned.
Two weeks later, the company – again, the UK marketing operation rather than Harlequin Hotels & Resorts – applied to go into administration.
