Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Brown Rudnick made it clear that it had put approximately a year’s work into this going back to when it started with PIMCO. PIMCO told us in its letter to the committee, and Mr. Neporent need not be expected to know this, that in April 2013 it was approached by Mr. Keenan, a partner in Brown Rudnick. To be pragmatic, quite a bit of work had to be done by some people before they got to approach PIMCO. I would have assumed reading that letter that Brown Rudnick had been in the field with people, prior to the day it approached PIMCO because it must have gone to PIMCO with something. I would feel there is a strong possibility that the work on this had commenced quite a long time before March 2013 because it could not have started on that day. Mr. Neporent cannot comment on that because it was not working for Cerberus.

I can understand how there might have been an issue for Brown Rudnick not being able to disclose the information it got from the February-March period, the bidding period but there was no involvement with NAMA before the formal sales process commenced. I could see how any information Brown Rudnick had gathered through its own resources prior to the bid processing could not have been covered by a non-disclosure agreement with NAMA. Would Mr. Neporent think it would be free to use that type of information?