THE MORIARTY tribunal may be facing further delay in publishing its final report following an offer from a Danish telecoms consultant that he would attend to give evidence.
Michael Andersen, whose firm, Andersen Management International (AMI), was the key adviser to the 1995 mobile phone licence competition, has said he is now willing to give evidence.
A statement from him outlining the evidence he would give was forwarded to the tribunal yesterday by solicitors acting for businessman Denis O’Brien, whose consortium, Esat Digifone, won the competition.
In the statement, Mr Andersen said that, as far as he was aware, the then minister for transport, energy and communications, Michael Lowry, played no part in the licence competition.
“I am confident that if any such interference on his part existed, I would have become aware of it as part of my central and critical involvement in the process,” he added.
He said any attempt to seek to prefer any of the bidders would have raised his suspicions and this did not occur. “Esat Digifone was a clear winner of the GSM licence competition process.”
Some years ago tribunal counsel told a public hearing that the failure to provide a financial indemnity to Mr Andersen had led to his not giving evidence.
The tribunal has recently heard evidence from two officials from the Attorney General’s office that called into question provisional findings of the tribunal regarding the legality of the licence award.
In his statement Mr Andersen, in a reference to representatives of Mr O’Brien, said it was after this that he was contacted and asked if he would be willing to give evidence. “I confirmed that I was so willing . . . It did occur to me that there were very many parallels between the recent evidence from the officials of the Office of the Attorney General and my personal position and experience with the tribunal.
“I am willing to give evidence under oath to the tribunal . . . for the simple reason that I believe that it is in alignment with the public interest to get all factual errors and misunderstandings cleared before a final report may be published by the tribunal.”
The tribunal’s provisional findings cannot be disclosed for legal reasons. Mr Andersen in his statement said they include “a number of very significant errors”.
Mr Andersen is expected to be called to give evidence. Based on his statement, his evidence could substantially alter some of the provisional findings made by the tribunal in November 2008.
The tribunal was established in 1997.
