Nama deal: Ian Coulter says no politician or their relatives were due to receive money from sale

Mr Coulter said no politician, nor any relative of any politician, was ever to receive any money from the deal.

The solicitor at the centre of the Nama loan sale controversy has said that no politician, nor any relative of any politician, was ever to receive any money from the deal.

Ian Coulter is the former managing partner of Tughans solicitors in Belfast and worked on behalf of the buyers in the £1bn deal.

He left Tughans in January.

The firm said he had transferred fees to an Isle of Man bank account of which he was the sole beneficiary.

In a statement, Mr Coulter said he had directed the transfer but it was for "a complex, commercially and legally-sensitive" reason.

He added that the reason had been explained to his former partners at Tughans and "will be explained to the appropriate authorities".

However, in a statement on Wednesday, Tughans said "it strongly disagrees with his version of events".

Julian O'Neill, BBC News NI Business Correspondent

Mr Coulter's headline is that no politician (or relative of any politician) was to have been paid over the Nama deal.

It is worth noting what is not said in this 800-word statement.

• He does not explain why there was an Isle of Man account;

• He does not say why the bulk of £7.5m was moved;

• He does not reject the 'fixers' payment allegation;

• He does not state the Isle of Man fees were his alone.

Does the opening line of his statement provide a clue?

"The concept of a Northern Ireland Nama deal was developed and significant work leading up to this deal was done by other business people in Northern Ireland, before any involvement of Cerberus (or any bidder)."

It will be interesting to know what, if anything, Nama knew of this.

The BBC's Spotlight programme has established the account was intended to facilitate payments to non-lawyers or deal fixers in the £1bn sale of Nama's Northern Ireland portfolio.

The Irish politician, Mick Wallace, alleged that a payment of £7m was due to be made to a politician though no evidence has been produced for that claim.

A fee of £7.5m was paid to Tughans for work it did on behalf of Brown Rudnick - the lawyers which represented the Cerberus investment fund which bought the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) portfolio.

'Formally engaged'

It is understood that Mr Coulter was the only person at Tughans working on the deal.

He said: "Through Tughans I was formally engaged to provide the required local counsel to Brown Rudnick.

Nama sold its Northern Ireland property portfolio to US investment firm Cerberus last year

"This was a commercial arrangement with Brown Rudnick, for which fees were discussed and agreed."

He said the £7.5m had been paid into a Tughans company account and in September 2014 he instructed the firm's finance director to transfer a portion of it into the external account.

'Discussions'

Mr Coulter directly contradicted a claim by Tughans that it had "discovered" the money.

He said he transferred it back to Tughans in early December 2014 and brought it to their attention and then "discussions took place to try to resolve the matter".

Following those discussions, he said he resigned on terms agreed with Tughans.

He added: "I have not received any personal financial benefit for my work on this transaction. Neither I nor any third party has received any part of the £7.5m fees."

Mr Coulter said he has not yet been asked to attend either the finance committee of the NI Assembly or the Public Accounts Committee of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament).

In its statement, Tughans said it "strongly disagrees with his (Mr Coulter's) version of events surrounding the treatment, discovery and retrieval of the professional fees and his exit from the practice".

It said it had passed all documentation relating to this to the Law Society.

"The firm voluntarily brought the matter to the attention of the Law Society and will continue to co-operate with any inquiry," the statement said.