Should Irish bank bosses say sorry like their UK counterparts have done?

stepbar

gurramok wrote: »

You sidestepped the issue. There is a rant in your first paragraph about the CIF. The rest is regarding residential mortgaging and soup.

Now, i ask you a question regarding the present situation which has resulted in danger for Irish banks.

Do you think any of the banks were engaged in reckless lending to developers both here and in the UK?

Please justify your answer.

By saying what? The residental market is intricately linked to the property developers. If you're trying to say that property developers went into their banks fcukless about what they wanted to borrow money for then you are seriously misreading the suitation. As I have already stated, the bank forms an opinion based on what the borrower discloses, professional advice (valuers, estate agents) and from internal resources. Some were perhaps more agressive than other because they wanted business. Simple as. A retailer who wants business cuts prices or does something different to differentiate themselves. Same difference.

The word "reckless" would seem to suggest that an individual was somewhat rash or indifferent to the consequences of what would happen. The very reason why you have credit dept in banks is so such a suitation is not allowed to happen (where by some individual would be able to lend large amounts on the fly). Lenders could be guilty of poor judgement but reckless is a term I strongly disagree with because it's just so far from the truth it's not funny.

stepbar

I love this line

José Alaninho wrote: »

but the lion's share of the blame must lie squarely on the shoulders of those who duped them into it.

The bankers "duped" Joe Public into borrowing money to buy houses? LOL

José Alaninho wrote: »

So reckless and irresponsible banking practices leading to one of the worst recessions this country has ever faced, backed up by a brainless government intent on pleasing their wealthy party backers, is not a crime? Well it f*ckin should be.

Politics in all walks of life. Well if it ain't young jimmy who didn't get on the county team its Cowan and the boys sticking brown ones down their jocks. Don't you just love it, eh?

José Alaninho

I'm glad I have amused you... at least my time has not been totally wasted.

May I ask you a question then stepbar? Who do you think should take the blame for our current situation? The collective middle-classes? Or is it merely a global problem over which we have no control, and therefore no-one is to blame?

No malice intended, just curious as to your opinion....

gurramok

reckless:
   1. utterly unconcerned about the consequences of some action; without caution; careless (usually fol. by of): to be reckless of danger.
2. characterized by or proceeding from such carelessness: reckless extravagance.

bonkey wrote: »

Nope.

The banks were recklessly involved in derivatives markets, which they were reliant on to support other activities.

Had the derivatives markets not imploded, the banks would have been absolutely fine and dandy had the Irish housing market collapsed. The home-owners, developers and so on might have been in trouble, but not the banks. While it might be small comfort, on the global scale, the Irish housing market is chump change. The Irish banks were more than covered...as long as the derivatives market served its purpose.

Unfortunately, the global derivatives markets went first, and the knock-on from that caused the Irish housing market to go, which is what in turn caused the housing development market to stall, which is where the banks needed to fall back on the derivatives that had already turned toxic on them.

So no...it wasn't the lending which was reckless. It was the means of securing the lending.

But hey...its just details.

You've missed something, but hey its just details. You're timing is wrong.

The derivatives market imploded a full year(Aug 2007) after the Irish housing bubble started to collapse(Aug 2006) so passing the buck does not work.
Irish lending was continuing at full speed to developers before Aug 2007. They over exposed themselves to these risks as a portion of their loan books hence that is reckless.

stepbar wrote:

By saying what? The residental market is intricately linked to the property developers. If you're trying to say that property developers went into their banks fcukless about what they wanted to borrow money for then you are seriously misreading the suitation. As I have already stated, the bank forms an opinion based on what the borrower discloses, professional advice (valuers, estate agents) and from internal resources. Some were perhaps more agressive than other because they wanted business. Simple as. A retailer who wants business cuts prices or does something different to differentiate themselves. Same difference.

The word "reckless" would seem to suggest that an individual was somewhat rash or indifferent to the consequences of what would happen. The very reason why you have credit dept in banks is so such a suitation is not allowed to happen (where by some individual would be able to lend large amounts on the fly). Lenders could be guilty of poor judgement but reckless is a term I strongly disagree with because it's just so far from the truth it's not funny.

So we have words like 'more aggressive'. Ok, lets pick Irish Nationwide as they were probably one of the worst exposed. Nice little article here saying
(http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2008/1212/1228864713498.html) Irish Nationwide is...

Credit rating agency Fitch said in September that 80 per cent of the building society's loans are to commercial and residential property development and investment, while 45 per cent of the loan is on British property, mostly in London.

The above is reckless in my opinion, it was lent without thinking of the consequences. Same for Anglo who have been mostly in the news.

I suggest you read this regarding all lending by Irish banks
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2008/06/15/story33690.asp

The banks could face big problems. The capital base on which they loaned the €386.3 billion mentioned above is only €44.3 billion.

This means any significant write-offs could cause difficulties. In fact, it’s worse than that because, once a bank starts making losses, it is required to deduct them from its capital base, reducing the amount it can lend by about ten times the loss.

This will reduce the availability of loans, thus accelerating the rate at which the money supply contracts and making it even harder for people to service their debts. This could create a negative cycle which would be damaging to the financial system and to our economy.

This too is reckless. They all need to say sorry.

stepbar

José Alaninho wrote: »

I'm glad I have amused you... at least my time has not been totally wasted.

May I ask you a question then stepbar? Who do you think should take the blame for our current situation? The collective middle-classes? Or is it merely a global problem over which we have no control, and therefore no-one is to blame?

No malice intended, just curious as to your opinion....

You first. I rather not have my opinion deconstructed by someone who hasn't given much of an opinion to date. Oooo sorry, shur you think it's all the bankers fault don't ya :rolleyes:

stepbar

gurramok wrote: »

So we have words like 'more aggressive'. Ok, lets pick Irish Nationwide as they were probably one of the worst exposed. Nice little article here saying
(http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2008/1212/1228864713498.html) Irish Nationwide is...


The above is reckless in my opinion, it was lent without thinking of the consequences. Same for Anglo who have been mostly in the news.

I suggest you read this regarding all lending by Irish banks
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2008/06/15/story33690.asp


This too is reckless. They all need to say sorry.

For what? You seem to have a fixation with reckless lending? Should the bankers say sorry for global warming?


INBS lent people money to buy / build office blocks and the like. Admitantly when you're feeding off the dropping of the bigger banks, you might be a bit more agressive for business. It doesn't mean that INBS lended wrecklessly. Poor judgement =/= Wreckless. You don't know what security was taken or what wealth the individual had at the time which would have backed up the loan. You're assuming worse case scenario (i.e every loan going bad, individuals can walk away, no rent roll etc).

José Alaninho

stepbar wrote: »

You first. I rather not have my opinion deconstructed by someone who hasn't given much of an opinion to date. Oooo sorry, shur you think it's all the bankers fault don't ya :rolleyes:

Not entirely the bankers, no. The government who turned a blind eye to this carry-on are as much to blame as the scumbags who still sit in their plush CEO offices and still make 1 million+ a year, while ordinary people are expected to foot the bill for their carefree attitude to people's money. Something about that just strikes me as, well.... wrong.

Enough of an opinion for you?

deadhead13

An apology from the banks would just let the finance minister from the same period off the hook i.e. Brian Cowen.

gurramok

stepbar wrote: »

For what? You seem to have a fixation with reckless lending? Should the bankers say sorry for global warming?


INBS lent people money to buy / build office blocks and the like. Admitantly when you're feeding off the dropping of the bigger banks, you might be a bit more agressive for business. It doesn't mean that INBS lended wrecklessly. Poor judgement =/= Wreckless. You don't know what security was taken or what wealth the individual had at the time which would have backed up the loan. You're assuming worse case scenario (i.e every loan going bad, individuals can walk away, no rent roll etc).

Now thats been ridiculous equating global warming meltdown to a financial system meltdown.
Poor judgment without thinking of the consequences equals recklessness. It seems your coming from the angle that none of these institutions never heard of housing/commercial bubbles before?

These banking institutions had a bet on both types of bubbles to make money and they lost. That is reckless. No matter what words are applied like 'aggressive', 'poor judgment' etc, they do not hide recklessness.

nesf

gurramok wrote: »

You've missed something, but hey its just details. You're timing is wrong.

The derivatives market imploded a full year(Aug 2007) after the Irish housing bubble started to collapse(Aug 2006) so passing the buck does not work.
Irish lending was continuing at full speed to developers before Aug 2007. They over exposed themselves to these risks as a portion of their loan books hence that is reckless.

You're reading what you want to read in his arguments rather than what's there. He said the banks are in the trouble they are in because of the international banking crisis, he did not say the housing bubble burst because of the international crisis.

gurramok

nesf wrote: »

You're reading what you want to read in his arguments rather than what's there. He said the banks are in the trouble they are in because of the international banking crisis, he did not say the housing bubble burst because of the international crisis.

No nesf.

The guy said the following:
'Unfortunately, the global derivatives markets went first, and the knock-on from that caused the Irish housing market to go, which is what in turn caused the housing development market to stall, which is where the banks needed to fall back on the derivatives that had already turned toxic on them.'

Note: knock-on.

What he said was that the downing of the derivatives market caused the housing market to stall, that is not true. The housing market stalled a full year beforehand. He put the cart before the horse where the horse should be before the cart.

nesf

gurramok wrote: »

No nesf.

The guy said the following:
'Unfortunately, the global derivatives markets went first, and the knock-on from that caused the Irish housing market to go, which is what in turn caused the housing development market to stall, which is where the banks needed to fall back on the derivatives that had already turned toxic on them.'

Note: knock-on.

What he said was that the downing of the derivatives market caused the housing market to stall, that is not true. The housing market stalled a full year beforehand. He put the cart before the horse where the horse should be before the cart.

You're correct, I misread it.

Mr.Micro

What harm would it do for the banks to say sorry? Our UK counterparts have done so. It would certainly move things along with the public IMO, instead of the banks sitting in their empty ivory tower counting houses.

Regardless of the rights or wrongs or whether the banks wee reckless in their lending, one thing is certain prudence and conservative caution went out the window globally.

stepbar

gurramok wrote: »

Now thats been ridiculous equating global warming meltdown to a financial system meltdown.

I agree, just like its utterly ridiculous equating poor judgment to recklessness. Hense the comment I made in the first place. The word reckless is banded around like a wrecking ball. Reckless is lending to those who have no income. I know of no loan that was given to an individual / company who had not the capacity to repay a loan back at the time the loan was given (either from personal income, wages, rental income, other property to offer as security and so on).

The exact thing happened in the UK 20 years ago and no bank went under. We were unfortunate that the recession also co-insided with a global credit crunch. An please don't misconscrew me by saying the credit crunch was to blame for the Irish property prices going south. The dogs on the street knew it was going to happen eventually. What they didn't anticipate was the speed of it and the fall out from the credit crunch.

Mr.Micro

If the banks were using derivatives to back up their loans here is an interesting piece written in 2006 stressing the risks and the complexities of using such methods....... our banks or others obviously did not read this.

The dangers of derivatives

By Cris Sholto Heaton Sep 27, 2006
Cris Sholto Heaton

Warren Buffett once referred to derivatives as ‘financial weapons of mass destruction’. Many pundits have gone as far as to warn that these instruments could bring down the financial system. But few people understand the alphabet soup of CDOs, CDSs and ABCDSs that appear regularly in the financial news. So what are derivatives and just how dangerous are they?
What are derivatives?

The first question is easily answered; the second less so. Derivatives have been around for centuries, with crude versions stretching back two millennia or more. They first evolved as a way for farmers and merchants to manage the risk of crop prices moving against them; a farmer who wanted to be certain what price he would get for his grain at harvest could use forwards or futures contracts to lock in a price in advance. In time, speculators became a crucial part of derivatives markets. They had no interest in hedging their own exposure, but instead used derivatives to bet on the prices of agricultural commodities.

The same basic principles apply today, but derivatives have become far more complex than simple punts on pork bellies. There are derivatives that allow people to bet on and hedge against movements in currencies, interest rates, shares, debt, property and more besides. The market is vast; the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) says the total notional amount of derivatives outstanding was $236trn at the end of 2005, up 20% on 2004 (although “gross credit exposure” – the amount at risk on the contracts at any point – is probably less than 5% of that, according to the Bank for International Settlements).

There are several important points to bear in mind with derivatives. The contracts themselves are a zero-sum game – for every winner there must be a loser. Many are enormously complex, requiring advanced mathematics to get a handle on how they work. The hedge funds and banks that trade them make extensive use of leverage – trading with a very small amount of their own capital and a very large amount of borrowed money – to juice up returns. All this can make derivatives extremely risky – and there’s plenty of evidence that supposedly sophisticated, professional investors often don’t fully understand how much risk they’re taking on.

http://www.moneyweek.com/investments/stock-markets/the-dangers-of-derivatives.aspx

kleefarr

What a farce.

[rant]
The poor sods that have lost their jobs and are having trouble paying the mortgage won't be able to just say sorry and keep their house. So why should these fackers be allowed to get away with "sorry" and just make millions disappear without being asked for it back or even be given more to help them out. I think it's an complete and utter piss take.[/rant]

:mad:

gurramok

Yes Mr Micro. They jumped in without thinking of the consequences hence reckless.

stepbar wrote: »

I agree, just like its utterly ridiculous equating poor judgment to recklessness. Hense the comment I made in the first place. The word reckless is banded around like a wrecking ball. Reckless is lending to those who have no income. I know of no loan that was given to an individual / company who had not the capacity to repay a loan back at the time the loan was given (either from personal income, wages, rental income, other property to offer as security and so on).

Ah now, where is it defined that 'Reckless is lending to those who have no income'?

I tried googling but cannot find what you are saying but a zillion articles giving out about reckless bank lending.:D
Only the US ones talk about Ninja(no income, no job applicants) but another zilllion European articles still say European banks which were not involved in Ninja were engaged in 'reckless lending' on their own territories.

Can you clarify?

Mr.Micro

gurramok wrote: »

Yes Mr Micro. They jumped in without thinking of the consequences hence reckless.



Ah now, where is it defined that 'Reckless is lending to those who have no income'?

I tried googling but cannot find what you are saying but a zillion articles giving out about reckless bank lending.:D
Only the US ones talk about Ninja(no income, no job applicants) but another zilllion European articles still say European banks which were not involved in Ninja were engaged in 'reckless lending' on their own territories.

Can you clarify?

I agree gurramok, the article I cited states that for every winner there is a loser. This practice therefore to back up loans was a massive complex gamble that was reckless indeed, as the piece states
Warren Buffett once referred to derivatives as ‘financial weapons of mass destruction’. Many pundits have gone as far as to warn that these instruments could bring down the financial system. Which has happened.

nesf

Mr.Micro wrote: »

If the banks were using derivatives to back up their loans here is an interesting piece written in 2006 stressing the risks and the complexities of using such methods....... our banks or others obviously did not read this.

I'm not sure if the Irish banks were very guilty of this (they haven't been effected by the large writedowns based on CDO losses that have been reported by American and European banks).


Speaking more generally, the problem wasn't "derivatives" though, it was specifically ones mortgage based ones. The currency derivatives markets for instance are fine. I don't really want to get into the specifics but there are fundamental differences between most derivatives (even so called "exotic" ones) and the mortgage backed ones.


Edit: Just to clarify a little:

The short answer is that there is a world of difference in pricing a derivative for something that's based on the current price of some asset and in pricing a derivative based on what history shows as realistic behaviour for that asset. Specifically, the pricing of a mortgage backed CDO requires you to form a judgement of how likely default is for all of the (potentially hundreds) of mortgages that form it. The only way you can do this is by looking at historical patterns of default which is very prone to error for obvious reasons (past performance doesn't guarantee future returns etc et al). There's also specifically a problem in that corporate debt backed CDOs are far better vehicles because market participants can see public records of the accounts of different companies so they can judge creditworthiness better. The markets have no such access to information on all the individual mortgage holders.

On the other hand, pricing a derivative based on where Eurodollar will be in several months time is a very different proposition. For one thing you can glean a lot of information from the present Eurodollar price, the present Future prices for deliver of Eurodollars at different three monthly intervals etc. You can observe the present price of an asset, you can't directly observe someone's creditworthiness.

The central simple tenet is, the market can only work if it can accurately price things, which couldn't happen with mortgage backed CDOs.

If you want to discuss this further we can do it in the Economics forum.

K-9

nesf wrote: »

I'm not sure if the Irish banks were very guilty of this (they haven't been effected by the large writedowns based on CDO losses that have been reported by American and European banks).

Indeed, that does seem to be the case.

Our problem seems to be reckless lending as regards property, especially, commercial property.

Sean Dunne being a case in point. Lending on a site that didn't have the required planning to make it viable was madness. The muppets who did it got an award!

Mr.Micro

I'm not sure if the Irish banks were very guilty of this (they haven't been effected by the large writedowns based on CDO losses that have been reported by American and European banks).

At present its hard to know, as to what the full extent of the banks bad debts are or fully what they are/were involved in and where. Perhaps the Dept. of Finance know by now, but I doubt it. As far as us the public know the debts are very large. We appear to know a lot more about the American/UK/European banks than our own.

nesf

Mr.Micro wrote: »

At present its hard to know, as to what the full extent of the banks bad debts are or fully what they are/were involved in and where. Perhaps the Dept. of Finance know by now, but I doubt it. As far as us the public know the debts are very large. We appear to know a lot more about the American/UK/European banks than our own.

Our banks most certainly have many bad debts, of that I have no doubt, I'm not sure if many of those are CDO related though. I'm sure we'll be galled by how much was lent out on the back of "development land" as security but that won't be the fault of derivatives, which was my point in my post. I've no doubt that the bursting of the housing bubble has turned quite a few loans sour for the Irish banks.


As an aside, it isn't quite clear whether all the Irish banks would be in so much trouble if there wasn't an international banking crisis going on. Anglo was rumoured to be in trouble from day one almost but BoI and AIB had relatively sensible accounts in comparison to Anglo (in terms of loans vs deposits held, amount of funding sourced on the money markets etc).

Mr.Micro

nesf wrote: »

Our banks most certainly have many bad debts, of that I have no doubt, I'm not sure if many of those are CDO related though. I'm sure we'll be galled by how much was lent out on the back of "development land" as security but that won't be the fault of derivatives, which was my point in my post. I've no doubt that the bursting of the housing bubble has turned quite a few loans sour for the Irish banks.


As an aside, it isn't quite clear whether all the Irish banks would be in so much trouble if there wasn't an international banking crisis going on. Anglo was rumoured to be in trouble from day one almost but BoI and AIB had relatively sensible accounts in comparison to Anglo (in terms of loans vs deposits held, amount of funding sourced on the money markets etc).

No doubt about it the international crisis brought everybody down good and bad, and perhaps the BoI and AIB would have come through ok otherwise. The Anglo on the other hand from the little we know so far was IMO just a disaster waiting to happen and sooner or later even without the crisis it would have been exposed even if it was by virtue of the property market. Too many things happened at once like a domino effect or tsunami. I recall some time back reading somewhere that Warren Buffett said he was steering clear of the stock market for a while as it was too risky, might have been about a year or so ago. He called that right in hindsight.

nesf

Mr.Micro wrote: »

No doubt about it the international crisis brought everybody down good and bad, and perhaps the BoI and AIB would have come through ok otherwise. The Anglo on the other hand from the little we know so far was IMO just a disaster waiting to happen and sooner or later even without the crisis it would have been exposed even if it was by virtue of the property market. Too many things happened at once like a domino effect or tsunami.

Anglo is looking well dodgy from the latest story about the Permanent TSB deposit is extremely serious because it made Anglo's external accounts visible to the markets look a lot healthier than they actually were. This is being investigated but it has to be gotten to the bottom of.

K-9

nesf wrote: »

Anglo is looking well dodgy from the latest story about the Permanent TSB deposit is extremely serious because it made Anglo's external accounts visible to the markets look a lot healthier than they actually were. This is being investigated but it has to be gotten to the bottom of.

That is the most worrying story to come out yet.

PTSB seemed to know exactly what it was doing, another bank that made bad decisions, probably along with Irish Nationwide, the worst of the big 6.

jmayo

stepbar wrote: »

Originally Posted by jmayo
Perhaps a couple of them might apologsie for dragging this country's reputation through the gutter

LOL. The Government had no problem doing that one themselves

Ah but one of the former Gods of the Irish banking industry dragged it through the mire and stop the bull**** that government did it all.
Mention Sean Fitzpatrick to anyone in London andsee the reaction :rolleyes:

stepbar wrote: »

Last time I heard the ECB rate fell.

Ever heard of the borrowing our state has to engage in to bail out your bank and the others, becuase no investors will touch your bank with a barge pole at the moment and interbank lending has disappeared ?
Maybe all of this mess has no effects at all on our credit ratings :rolleyes:

stepbar wrote: »

Originally Posted by jmayo
Have I even mentioned how they have screwed all the taxpayers by lumping us with massive debts.

In return for equity stakes yeah?

An equity stake in a pile of shi** is still a pile of sh*** :rolleyes:
Perhaps you have conveniently forgotten the taxpayers now own a pile of sh***. We have a 100% equity stake in Anglo.

stepbar wrote: »

Originally Posted by jmayo
Also a couple need to apologise to shareholders who bought shares in their bank.
Shares that were artifically held up by bank giving loans to golden circle to buy the banks own shares.
In most countries that would be seen as semi illegal, but I guess Ireland is different once again.

Buy a few shares did we?

No I didn't.
Is being a smart ar** your only answer, to what in the US would probably get you a perp walk ?
Perhaps you would like to issue that statement to some of those who have lost money from pension funds and life savings by being deceived by dodgy dealings.

stepbar wrote: »

Originally Posted by jmayo
Perhaps then we can move along to fact that directors effectively hid loans, and moved these loans to another facilitating financial institution, so that they would not appear on annual auditied accounts.

With respect, it's nobody's business who much or for what purpose a person has borrowed money for. Sloppy by SP but nothing illegal.

BTW is probably is the business of the shareholders who have been duped by these practices. In the US you would probably find a class action coming.

Of course nothing is illegal if it benefits a few well connected people in this country :rolleyes:
Distorting one's own share prices by a company is illegal in most sane countries.

stepbar wrote: »

Originally Posted by jmayo
Then of course there is fact that another institution moved large billion euro deposit into another instution at finanical year end.
Was this another distortion of the stability of the institution ?

Probably has better deposit rates. LOL

So moving vast amounts around at year end would be normal ?
I mean why shouldn't the banks and finanical institutions manipulate the figures. You can call it creative accounting ala Fitzpatrick.

stepbar wrote: »

Originally Posted by jmayo
Of course a brass neck in your business seems to be a prerequsite as shown by the ones at the top.
Oh of course you shout, they nothing illegal.
Ever heard of the word ethics in your business?
By the looks of it, it is one word not appeaing much in banking manuals.

So lending money is not ethical now?

There is no problem with lending money.
It is when you distort the system to screw over investors and then leave the dumb smucks, as you would see the taxpayers, holding the can then it is unethical.

If your Irish banks were seen as totally above board, why will no investors touch them.

One question I, and probably a few other posters here, would like a straight answer on:
Do you think that Fitzpatrick did anything wrong and thus has questions to answer ?

Mr.Micro

nesf wrote: »

Anglo is looking well dodgy from the latest story about the Permanent TSB deposit is extremely serious because it made Anglo's external accounts visible to the markets look a lot healthier than they actually were. This is being investigated but it has to be gotten to the bottom of.

Yes I saw that, it will be very interesting to see who/whom deposited the money, here is what it says..


Government-appointed directors in Anglo Irish Bank are investigating a deposit of billions of euro by Irish Life & Permanent, which was placed in Anglo Irish Bank before the end of its financial year.

It is understood the issue of how the deposit affected accounts at Anglo Irish is also being investigated by the Financial Regulator.

Sources have told RTÉ News that volatility in deposits in Anglo Irish Bank was one of the reasons the Government moved to nationalise Anglo Irish Bank.

http://www.rte.ie/business/2009/0210/anglo.html

nesf

jmayo wrote: »

One question I, and probably a few other posters here, would like a straight answer on:
Do you think that Fitzpatrick did anything wrong and thus has questions to answer ?

I think we're going to get an answer on that from the sound of things. At the very least the P. TSB deposit represented something very close to a deliberate misleading of the markets which is extremely serious though I would refrain (and would ask everyone else to refrain) from directly saying that it was illegal or that Fitzpatrick etc did something illegal for libel reasons (i.e. I'll have to remove them because boards.ie might get sued).

K-9

nesf wrote: »

I think we're going to get an answer on that from the sound of things. At the very least the P. TSB deposit represented something very close to a deliberate misleading of the markets which is extremely serious though I would refrain (and would ask everyone else to refrain) from directly saying that it was illegal or that Fitzpatrick etc did something illegal for libel reasons (i.e. I'll have to remove them because boards.ie might get sued).

Ponders why they would do it!

nesf

K-9 wrote: »

Ponders why they would do it!

Because it appears (though it is untested) that boards.ie has the same liability for posts on it that a newspaper does for articles it chooses to print. Which is stupid, but the area is very new legally so is relatively unknown. There is already one case going on for similar reasons.