Drumm 'completely forgot' about $1.2m transfer to wife's accounts, court hears
David Drumm has told a trial in Boston that he filled out his bankruptcy forms in 2010 "as best I could".
Lawyers for the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation and the court-appointed trustee are attempting to block his discharge from debt, claiming Mr Drumm transferred assets to his wife in a bid to avoid paying creditors.
The former Anglo Irish Bank boss has claimed he was fully compliant with the process, and any omissions were honest mistakes.
Between 2008 and 2009 David Drumm transferred almost $1.2m to his wife Lorraine’s accounts, before filing for bankruptcy in the US with debts of more than €10m in 2010.
When quizzed this morning by lawyers for one his creditors, the IBRC, about why he failed to mention the considerate transfers in initial bankruptcy filings, Mr Drumm testified that he "completely forgot".
The former Anglo boss was probed in detail in the bankruptcy court in Boston about the timeline of filings he made and paper work submitted by him and advisers. He said he told lawyers that he had been made aware he must be fully truthful or "get naked in public".
John Hutchinsons for the IBRC told the court that it couldn’t "reasonably accept" the excuse that Mr Drumm made mistakes on basic forms - given his "training and experience".
Lawyers for the 47-year-old said that, barring a few "minor exceptions", Mr Drumm was fully compliant with the process, and that transfers being questioned by the IBRC fall outside the one-year time limit in which any fraud claims can be made against him.
Mr Drumm’s lawyer, David Mack, said his defence would show that in fact in the "period that counts", the 12 months before his client filed for discharge, he made only transfers that would benefit creditors including paying €50,000 in Irish taxes.
