YOGA GURU Tony Quinn is in breach of his fiduciary duties to the Central American oil company of which he is a director, a court in the Caribbean has found.
The judgment by the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court is likely to result in Mr Quinn having to pay significant damages to a fellow director of the company, International Natural Energy (INE).
The court has also ordered him to purchase the shares fellow director Paul Marriott owns in INE in accordance with an independent valuation of the company’s shares.
The court’s decision is the latest twist in a long-running row in the firm since it discovered huge reserves of oil in Belize. INE and its subsidiary Belize Natural Energy has earned hundreds of millions of euro in revenues since 2005 but has never paid a dividend.
Most of its shareholders are small investors from Ireland who had some previous involvement with Mr Quinn through his training seminars or other ventures. The majority of these shareholders remain loyal to the businessman but a minority have grown increasingly frustrated at the failure to pay dividends and the lack of financial information from the company.
Last July, Mr Marriott, one of the founders of the company, filed a lawsuit against INE, Mr Quinn and another founder and director, Susan Morrice. The action was filed in the Caribbean island of Nevis, the offshore tax haven in which the company is incorporated. Mr Quinn was not involved when oil was discovered but was invited to join the board two years later because he was “instrumental” in securing the majority of investments, Ms Morrice has told the court. She denied Mr Marriott’s claims that the company was being manipulated to the detriment of shareholders.
Last January, the court struck out INE’s defence, ordered the company to open its books to Mr Marriott and ordered it not to release any funds under a loan release programme.
The company has since appealed this judgment and a stay has been put on the court’s order. Mr Quinn, who lives in the Bahamas, did not file a defence against the action.
Last week, Mr Justice Albert Redhead of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court found that he had breached his fiduciary duties to INE and ordered him to pay the costs of the action.
Mr Quinn can appeal the judgment but would first have to explain why he did not enter a defence.
Responding to the judgment, Mr Marriott said he hoped that INE would disassociate itself from Mr Quinn and immediately seek to recover from him damages suffered by shareholders as a result of the breach of fiduciary duty to INE. He said he went to court as a last resort after being refused information about INE.
Another director, Jean Cornec, is taking legal action seeking millions of euro he claims were owed to him after he sold his shareholding.
Among the founders of the oil company were two women from Northern Ireland, Ms Morrice and Sheila McCaffrey, as well as Mr Cornec and Mr Marriott.
