The National Crime Agency has launched an investigation into Nama’s €1.5bn (£1.1bn) sale of Project Eagle to Cerberus.
The investigation follows claims from Northern Irish politician Mick Wallace that £7m was set aside while the deal to sell the portfolio of bad debt was being struck.
Wallace claims that the cash was to be used for payments to so-called fixers and influencers behind the sale of the €4.5bn of property loans.
He says the money was initially paid to Belfast legal firm Tughans, which was subcontracted to advise on the deal by American firm Brown Rudnick. It was then transferred to an account in the Isle of Man of which Ian Coulter, managing partner at the company,
was sole beneficiary. The money was retrieved by Tughans. Coulter has since left the company.
Further concerns have been raised over PIMCO, the only other bidder for Project Eagle, being advised by former Nama committee member Frank Cushnahan, and its proposed fee arrangement with Brown Rudnick, which initially advised the company. It was forced to remove itself from the sales process as a result.
Nama chairman Frank Daly said: “We take great exception to any suggestion that anyone representing Nama was engaged in wrongdoing. If there has been wrongdoing at the periphery of this transaction it has nothing to do with Nama and, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, it is wrong and dishonest to claim otherwise.”
A spokesman for Cerberus said it was “deeply concerned” by Wallace’s allegations.
He said: “We conducted ourselves in accordance with the highest ethical standards in the bidding process and we have done the same in connection with our ownership and management of the Project Eagle portfolio. We have no knowledge or reason to believe that process was conducted with anything but the utmost integrity.”
