The high-profile businessman said the country’s top corporate watchdog’s position should be “called into question”.
Mr O’Brien issued a statement after the CEA said in its annual report that the final costs associated with the INM investigation stood at €5.82m.
Reacting yesterday, Mr O’Brien said the true financial cost is closer to €40m.
He claimed the costly High Court process could have been avoided if the CEA, under Ian Drennan’s leadership, had conducted the investigation itself.
Mr O’Brien said Mr Drennan had failed to interview him and others before escalating an initial investigation of complaints about governance at INM – at a time when Mr O’Brien was the biggest shareholder – into a High Court inspection.
That more formal process saw barrister Sean Gillane SC and UK solicitor Richard Fleck appointed by the High Court in 2018 at the request of the CEA as inspectors to investigate a number of claims including that Leslie Buckley, as INM’s then chairman, acted improperly in ways to benefit Mr O’Brien.
Mr Drennan took a deliberate decision not to engage with or interview several parties
The High Court-appointed inspectors’ report took six years, in part because of Covid, and was published in July last year. It made a number of criticisms but the 868-page report concluded no corporate laws had been breached at INM.
The CEA then opted to take no further action.
“It is now time for the role and conduct of the director, Mr Ian Drennan, to be called into question,” Mr O’Brien said.
“Mr Drennan took a deliberate decision not to engage with or interview several parties, including myself, who could have provided him with answers to his questions and saved the State and other parties in excess of €40m.”
The publication of the report from the CEA was “most noteworthy for its failure to make any reference to its own conduct in matters relating to Independent News & Media, [INM]”, Mr O’Brien said. In the foreword to the annual report, Mr Drennan confirmed the CEA had taken the decision not to bring any enforcement action against any of the people whose actions at the then stock market-listed INM had been subject to the inspection.
However, in his report, Mr Drennan said that would not mean his agency is less likely to seek a similar process in future in relation to another company if he believed CEA powers of inquiry fell short of what was required to investigate potential corporate wrongdoing.
The inspectors ultimately found former INM chairman Mr Buckley did pass confidential information to Mr O’Brien in a way that was not compliant with the company’s policies and the terms of a memorandum he signed in 2016 but that he did not break company law.
The CEA and Mr Drennan did not respond to a request for comment by the time of going to press.
This article was amended on July 5th 2025 to correct the first name of solicitor Richard Fleck.
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