Cayman Islands Judge Rules Ansbacher Bank Cannot Release Depositor Names

by Robert Lee, Tax-news.com, London

28 May 2001

The long-running Ansbacher affair has reached a critical point, with the Chief Justice of the Cayman Islands finally delivering his ruling on Ansbacher Bank. The judgement was lengthy - some 48 pages - but the message was simple: general confidential information relating to Ansbacher deposits should be revealed to the Irish authorities, but the names and addresses of account holders must remain confidential.

The Ansbacher debacle has been rumbling on for over three years now, when Irish investigations began into Ansbacher (Cayman) deposits. About 120 wealthy Irish business figures are believed to have held money in the secret accounts, designed to evade Irish tax. For the best part of three years, Ansbacher (Cayman) refused to co-operate with the investigating tribunal, but the high media profile accorded to the proceedings did not go down well in other major offices of Ansbacher (principally London and South Africa). So earlier this year Ansbacher (Cayman) requested that it be allowed to give information to the Irish High Court inspectors.

In his ruling, Mr Justice Anthony Smellie decided that it would be unfair for Ansbacher to give depositors' names to the inspectors investigating the Ansbacher deposits when it has not been demonstrated in any way that the individuals in question had committed any crime. According to the Irish Times, Mary Harney, the Irish Tánaiste, said that the judgment did not seem "helpful", but she believed Irish investigators already had quite a pile of evidence with which to produce a "substantial report".

Mr Justice Anthony Smellie ordered that Ansbacher Bank should disclose 'information sufficient to establish the nature of the business Ansbacher did' which could serve to show 'that Ansbacher did not conduct illegal banking business or business designed to assist in defrauding the Irish Revenue.' He ruled that all names or other identifying information should be deleted from the information and 'substituted by alphabetical letters, numbers or symbols representing such persons; the key to which shall be restricted to Ansbacher.'

There were three parties objecting to Ansbacher's application to the Cayman court to co-operate with the Irish authorities. These were Hamilton Ross Co Ltd, Poinciana Fund Ltd, and actual clients of Ansbacher. Hamilton Ross and Poinciana are Cayman-based trust companies which did business with Irish clients and with Ansbacher. The principal reason they made objections to the Ansbacher application was that the trust companies did not want fresh financial details concerning their clients reaching the Irish authorities at a time when many of these clients were talking to the Irish tax authorities. Irish residents connected with Ansbacher but who are yet to be eyed by the Irish authorities can stop looking over their shoulders following Mr Justice Smellie's ruling.

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