Ireland's one-time richest man has gone bust after a series of secret stock market gambles.
Sean Quinn, an entrepreneur who started with a £100 loan and amassed a fortune of £3.7bn, declared himself bankrupt yesterday amid wrangling over the extent of his debts and a bitter row over who wasresponsible.
He says he owes about €194m (£166m) to the bank, but the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), the rebranded version of the former Anglo-Irish Bank, maintains he and his family owe the Irish state€2.9bn.
Mr Quinn's bankruptcy declaration in the High Court in Belfast means hecould be free of his debtsin a year. Had he taken the same move in the Republic, he would be out of business for 12 years. The IBRC issued a statement yesterday disputing that Mr Quinn, pictured, is resident in Northern Ireland and claimed the family live inCo Cavan, on the southern side of the border. The bank is questioning the validity of the bankruptcy declaration. Mr Quinn's downfall came after he invested in Anglo-Irish shortly before the share price slumped as the economy faltered. He believes he could have paid off the debt and recovered had Anglo not taken control of the Quinn Group of companies. Anglo is under investigation by the fraud squad and a corporate watchdog in Ireland. Mr Quinn said:"I've done absolutely everything in my power to avoid taking this drastic decision. The vastmajority of debt that Anglo maintains is owed is strenuously disputed."

The son of a farmer in county Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, Mr Quinn left school at 14 to work on the family farm. He founded a quarry business with a £100 loan in 1973, before taking on Irish cement group CRH in the building materials sector and diversifying into hotels, property and insurance.
In 2008 he was ranked Ireland’s richest man by Forbes magazine with a fortune estimated at$6bn and ownership of trophy assets such as TheBelfry golf course in the UK.
His involvement with Anglo, the bank at the centre of Ireland’s banking crisis, precipitated his spectacular fall from grace. It has also seen hisfamily become embroiled in multiple legal battles with the lender, which is seeking to recoup Quinn assets inseveral countries.
In 2007 Mr Quinn took a mgamble on Anglo’s share price using contracts for difference (CFDs), an anonymous form of investment that allow the holder to bet on price movements without buying the shares outright. Mr Quinnamassed a CFD shareholding in Anglo of close to 30 per cent, initially funding the bets with a €750m loan from the Quinn Group. But when the bank’s share price began falling sharply, Mr Quinn was advanced loans by Anglo to cover the position, according to a statementof claim filed by the Quinn family to the Irish High court in June.
Mr Quinn accepts he owes Anglo almost €200m for property and other loans advanced during the property boom in Ireland. But he disputes the rest of the debt, which relates to hisuse of CFDs to buy Anglo shares.
The Quinn family are suing Anglo, claiming themoney advanced to themin the CFD trade was “tainted by illegality” because they allege it was loaned to support the bank’s share price.
They also allege Anglo and the Irish government are making them scapegoats for the banking crisis, which forced Ireland to accept an €67.5bn bail-out fromthe European Union and International Monetary Fund last year.
Anglo is suing the Quinn family in several countries, including Ukraine, Sweden and Cyprus, for allegedly being involved in a conspiracy to move an estimated €500m in property assets beyond the reach of the state-owned lender. In one case Anglo alleges the interests in Russian companies with assets worth £193m were wrongly transferred for the benefit of Quinn family members for £1,000 and a laptop computer worth £300. Anglo was scheduled to seek a bankruptcy judgment against Mr Quinn next Monday.
Mr Quinn said on Friday his decision to apply for bankruptcy in Northern Ireland was taken because he was “born, reared and worked all my life in County Fermanagh”.
Bankruptcy proceedings in the UK are significantly more lenient than in Ireland, where it currently takes up to 12 years to emergefrom bankruptcy proceedings. In the UK a bankrupt can discharge their debts within a year and emerge from the process free to start businesses afresh.
Anglo, which has recently been renamed the Irish Bank ResolutionCorporation, is likely to contest the bankruptcy on the basis that Mr Quinn’s lives in Cavan in the Republic.
“The Bank is examining the validity of this application for bankruptcy in the light of Mr Quinn’s residency and extensive business interests and liabilities within the State,” it said.

now that is some deep corruption.

moving assetts.. changing addresses, buying bank shares with bank money then the bank says you did it and he says the bank wanted him too.

thiers criminality at many levels. sounds like our bail outs. 1 ceo still got 171 million as a bonus after congress bailed them out.

remember they claimed some of the bonuses went to bankers abroad and thier was nothing they could do about it and congress agreed by no action.

only thing is the news reports it when it does not look like us. but sounds like the bail out reasoning.

well they just moved money around.

every stockholder says well its just on paper.. its not real money.

our world and we love it. they tell us we do so we just accept