U2’s Adam takes €10m loss action
Bassist sues ex-accountant
U2 BASS guitarist Adam Clayton is suing his former accountant for damages, alleging he has lost more than €10million in failed investments.
Gaby Smyth, of Gaby Smyth Accountants & Co in Ballsbridge, is alleged to have negligently advised the star, who is seeking damages.
Mr Clayton said he had been advised to place his money in high-risk investments when he had asked for low risk. Mr Clayton said he also invested €1.2million in a property development focusing on the UK and the North, and €3million in a fund which focused on potential development land, mainly in Munster and Connacht. This money was totally wiped out, the court heard.
The advice was said to have been given between 2001 and 2010.
Money was totally wiped out
Mr Clayton, of Danesmoate, Rathfarnham, Dublin, is seeking damages against Mr Smyth, of Wyvern, Killiney, Dublin. Mr Smyth denies the claims, and has countered that he was not the rocker’s financial adviser, as Mr Clayton had described him – but had only intermittently given his opinion on possible investments.
He said he acted as the musician’s personal accountant and tax agent and that Mr Clayton’s former personal assistant, Carol Hawkins, prepared his financial reports.
‘The true situation is that the plaintiff [Mr Clayton] is a high net-worth person with extensive knowledge of, and experience in, a wide range of investments and asset classes including property, shares, fine art and vintage cars,’ Mr Smyth said in his defence.
Mr Clayton also got lots of advice from a wide range of contacts, and generally had a high appetite for risk, Mr Smyth added. Mr Smyth has now objected to the renewal of a summons by Mr Clayton, and asked for it to be cancelled – meaning Mr Clayton would have to return to court to continue his action, or start it from scratch again.
High Court president Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns heard that a summons – the initial step in a civil case, ordering Mr Smyth to appear before court – had first been issued on February 13, 2013, and was due to expire 12 months later.
Mr Clayton’s lawyers have said they did not serve the summons on Mr Smyth in that first year as they were waiting for answers to letters they had sent to Mr Smyth’s legal team.
Mr Smyth’s counsel, Marcus Dowling BL, said if the summons had not been renewed on February 10, 2014, a fresh summons would have had to be issued. If this had happened, he said, a number of the allegedly failed investments would now date back over six years – meaning they could not legally be litigated at this stage.
Mr Smyth has claimed there had been a ‘lack of candour’ during the application by Mr Clayton’s lawyers to renew the summons.
Judge Kearns said he would adjourn his decision until November 3.