Judge found Yaroslav Gurnyak displayed a “hopeless lack of knowledge” about firm debt was transferred to

A UKRAINIAN man whom the High Court has been told was assigned debts worth more than $100 million by Seán Quinn’s family, “became evasive and non-co-operative” when questioned about related matters by the Supreme Court in Belize.

Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin, in a judgment delivered on February 24th in Belize, ruled that Yaroslav Gurnyak displayed a “hopeless lack of knowledge” when questioned about matters involving a Belize company called Galfis Overseas Ltd.

Last year debts worth more than $100 million, owed by property companies in Russia that formed part of the Quinn property group, were transferred on by Mr Quinn and his nephew, Peter Quinn.

The men say the loans, which were due to a Northern Ireland company called Demesne Investments Ltd, were assigned to Mr Gurnyak in April 2011, for a nominal fee, as part of an effort to put Quinn family assets beyond the reach of Anglo Irish Bank (now Irish Bank Resolution Corporation), which has sought to seize the Quinn property group.

IBRC, in an action currently before the High Court in Dublin, is claiming that the assignment was in fact to Galfis Overseas. It says the two men should be found guilty of contempt because the transfer, the bank alleges, took place in July, after the High Court told the family to stop putting assets beyond the bank’s reach.

The bank claims it was only when the men discovered that Galfis was still a shelf company in April, that they substituted Mr Gurnyak’s name for that of the Belize company.

In February Chief Justice Benjamin in Belize heard an application from Mr Gurnyak that he was the beneficial owner of Galfis and should be allowed to contest the appointment of a receiver to Galfis on behalf of IBRC.

Mr Gurnyak did not travel to Belize for the case as he said his daughter had told him not to because “his leg is aching”, and also because he had several business meetings in Russia.

Instead he gave evidence by way of video link from Moscow, using an interpreter.

Mr Gurnyak told the court, by way of affidavit, that he had for the previous 20 years been involved in corporate restructuring.

This conflicted with the evidence he gave by video link, where he told the court he finished secondary school in Sambora, Ukraine, in 1983, studied in the “university for oil” but did not get a degree, and then joined the Soviet army in 1987. He left the army in 1989, after which he got a job on the railways in Ukraine.

He told the court he worked on the railways up to 2011. “Since he left the railway, he started to be a self-employed businessman in the Moscow region,” his interpreter told the Belize court from Moscow. “Now he is part of the construction business in the Moscow region.”

Mr Gurnyak told the court that his cousin, Sergey Kovbasyuk, worked in the Moscow law firm of Attorneys and Business, a firm that provided advice to Peter Quinn last year when he was contemplating assigning the debts due to Demesne onwards and out of the reach of IBRC.

Mr Gurnyak’s attorney, Arturo Zafarov, of Attorneys and Business, “blurted out” an answer to one of the questions put to his client during his cross examination, according to the later judgment of the Belize court.

“Upon Mr Zafarov being instructed by the court to leave the room, the video feed terminated,” the chief justice said.

At an earlier point during the questioning, counsel Eamon Courtney, for IBRC, who was in the Belize court, complained that Mr Zafarov was “constantly shaking his head and telling [Mr Gurnyak] whether to say yes or no”.

The chief justice told the Russian attorney, who was in Moscow with his client, that he would ask him to leave if he continued this.

Mr Gurnyak would not name the 10 or so companies he said he had been involved in restructuring.

Asked where he had trained in company restructuring, he said, through his interpreter: “He was not trained in any special place. It was by his own. He trained by his own.” Asked what he meant by restructuring companies, Mr Gurnyak said he was a bit nervous and could not remember.

Efforts to restore the video connection when it was lost after Mr Zafarov was told to leave the room were unsuccessful. An arrangement was made to resume the interview the next day but Mr Gurnyak failed to turn up. The Belize court was told he had been threatened by an unidentified lawyer.

Mr Justice Benjamin said that from the answers given by Mr Gurnyak, coupled with his demeanour, the court was unable to conclude that he was the legal and beneficial owner of Galfis.

The transcript and judgment in the Belize case form part of the contempt case being taken by IBRC against Seán Quinn snr, Seán Quinn jnr, and Peter Quinn, which is to resume after the Easter break.