The sole person to give evidence on Thursday was the person who was appointed receiver to TLT, Gearoid Costelloe of Grant Thornton.

In his evidence, Costelloe said he was appointed fixed charge receiver on 4 November 2013 and was subsequently appointed receiver over the floating charge on 6 November 2013. Costelloe consistently alleged that the Garavellis have not assisted the receivership, a claim rejected by the defence.

Costelloe alleged that the Garavellis have yet to supply a Statement of Affairs. This is a sworn document which sets out a company’s assets and liabilities.

The Garavellis, for their part, said they were unable to provide the Statement of Affairs because they could not get access to a company hard drive, which was seized by the receiver. The contents from the hard drive was only provided to the Garavellis in late October this year, almost a full year after the company was put in receivership.

“Miss-posting” of funds

HSBC also alleged that there was one client of TLT’s which paid a sum of over €800,000 for livestock into a Bank of Ireland account and not the agreed HSBC account. The prosecution alleges that this was done deliberately to keep money away from HSBC while the defence suggest that this was a “miss-posting” of funds which would have been corrected in the results of the company’s audit had TLT not been put into receivership.

There was strong criticisms by the defence who set out to highlight what it perceived to be a “poor” performance by Costelloe in attempting to obtain money owed to the company as part of the receivership.

Professional fees

It emerged in court that Costelloe has thus far just been able to recoup somewhere in the region of €120,000 from the receivership which included a VAT rebate of over €99,000. It emerged in court that Costelloe has received professional fees somewhere in the region of €150,000 from the receivership. Costelloe “agreed” that the return from the receivership thus far has been “modest”.

The case was initially due to run for six days over two weeks but proceedings have been slow. At the minute, it looks as though the only sitting of the case next week will be to allow the completion of the examination of Costelloe. A prolonged period of time must be found in the court’s dairy to complete the case. Judge Haughton said another “four or five days” could be needed to complete hearings.