Further questions for Eddie Hobbs

There was a legal requirement on financial advisers to inform tax authorities. Eddie Hobbs says it was not his problem.

Further issues arise concerning the handling of clients affairs by Eddie Hobbs while he acted as a financial adviser when associated with the Taylor Investment Group in 1993 and 1994.

Section 229 of the Finance Act 1992 required financial advisers (called "intermediaries") to include in a return to the inspector details concerning aspects of their clients tax affairs and the adviser "shall take all reasonable care (including, where necessary, the requesting of documentary evidence) to confirm that the details furnished are true and correct".

We asked Eddie Hobbs if he had submitted such a return to the inspector of taxes in relation to two of his clients we wrote about last week, Mr A and Mr and Mrs B (Eddie Hobbs is aware of the clients to whom we are referring). In a response from his solicitor to this and other questions we put to him, the following reply is given:

"The responsibility for making third party returns (was) a matter for TIG (Taylor Investment Group) Limited. Our client was not a director of TIG Limited…. At the time no firms, including the large firms associated with large stockbrokers and large banks were not doing third party returns. If no-one was doing third party returns then it is highly unlikely that any third party returns were done in relation to the individuals referred to in the documentation you received from your sources, Mr Tony Taylor".

We would like to comment that it is not clear that there was no legal requirement on Eddie Hobbs to make this third party return to the Revenue Commissioners. Section 19 of the Finance Act 1989 refers to "intermediaries" as any "person" who provides relevant facilities in relation to investments.

A further issue arises.

In relation to one of his clients (not necessarily one of those on whom we reported last week), the client wanted to move a substantial sum of money in an account from a bank in Ireland in bogus names with a bogus address. Eddie Hobbs advised this person how the movement of monies could be accomplished and he advised the money should be moved, again using bogus names, to an account in a bank off-shore and then moved elsewhere.

We would like to emphasise that there is no insinuation that in so advising Eddie Hobbs was doing anything illegal, although, as he himself acknowledged on the Marian Finucane programme on Saturday, 10 September, "the optics are not great".

However, a separate issue arises.

In the course of a discussion on this account, Eddie Hobbs said the person who held the money in the bogus account was about to undergo a marriage separation at the time. The only relevance of this remark appeared to be that it was relevant to the reason the money was being moved. In other words, it seems fair to comment that what Eddie Hobbs seemed to be stating (and, we emphasise, this was not explicitly stated by him) was that his client wanted to move funds abroad lest these become embroiled in the share-out of property in a separation agreement.

It might be commented that obvious questions arise concerning the propriety of a financial adviser assisting or advising on the movement of monies out of the jurisdiction in circumstances in which it might be suspected that the motive for moving such monies was to deprive a spouse of a legal entitlement.

We asked Eddie Hobbs about this and, replying on his behalf, his solicitor stated "This is complete speculation and a misrepresentation of your telephone conversation with our client. It is a further example of why our client should not trust or talk to you. Our client has no idea what (this person's) motive would be". The letter went on to characterise our question as "outrageous". It stated Eddie Hobbs was not this person's solicitor, accountant or banker.