Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 18 June 2015

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Nexus Phase

Mr. Kevin Cardiff:

I saw in the paper you'll have the Attorney ... I'm sure he'll describe it differently and better than me. But, basically, unless you know ... unless you actually know that a bank has big losses, forcing losses onto people who have property rights is a real difficulty. And they're entitled, not just to object, but they're probably entitled to injunct the actions you're taking and all the rest. So it's that sense of ... because, remember, you're taking ... when you do a special resolution regime-type arrangement, you're saying ... you're taking value from bondholders, explicitly ... if the bank has value left in it, you're wrenching that value from out of the hands of the bondholders and you're handing it to the depositors - some of it. And that's a difficult thing in Irish constitutional law, as I understand it, and I'm not the lawyer. We were getting advice. But there are also more practical ... sort of more micro-level legal challenges as well. But that's it basically.

You have this pari passuprinciple ... that the ... I don't even know what it means, but the ... the creditors are the creditors-----

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