Mr. Edmund Honohan:

Investors are only concerned if their investment is at risk. In the capital market they can always sell on an asset on paper to someone else, make a few bob and move into something else like oil shares or something. That is the way they operate in America. I am probably going on too long now. There is a decision of the Supreme Court relating to the OSUS SPV where a derivative action from Bernie Madoff was being litigated in Ireland. The bank wanted to stop it and claimed it was champerty. It is not possible for someone litigate in a case where they did not have any involvement in it. At the outset of the transaction, the person must have had some interest in it, perhaps linked to the property at the time to be allowed to litigate.

In London, they hold their noses and say, "Gosh, we couldn't encourage gambling of that sort." In New York there is no problem with cases where people can buy and sell bits of paper. That is standard finance there. However, here the Supreme Court decided - I do not know why - to follow the English law and say that it would be beneath us to consider such skulduggery as allowing people to litigate on pieces of paper which were the sale of the right to litigate. It is pure speculation. It is like buying a bookie's ticket. The Irish Supreme Court determined it was not right.

I have come across an article by an academic in Belfast who believes the Irish Supreme Court was wrong. Can you imagine that? I came across another academic who graduated from Cork who is now working in Ottawa. He also believes there is a problem with this. These are risks investors face all the time - local laws impacting on their right to recover moneys. At the moment, the possibility that Irish law will bring a halt to the merry-go-round for the investors is not a real risk.