AIB went to the Commercial Court yesterday to enable it to question Tony O’ Reilly under oath about how his outstanding €14.3m debt to the bank can be satisfied and to disclose details of any transfers of assets he controlled worth more than €10,000, over the past five years.

It emerged in court that most of the €7.4m proceeds of the sale of Mr O’ Reilly’s home in Castlemartin, Co Kildare have gone towards reducing the AIB debt, but that the sale of his holiday home in Glandore Co Cork, which might reduced them further, is still pending.

The timing of AIB’s action may have been triggered by Mr O’ Reilly’s attempts to secure a voluntary winding of his debts to a range of banks, under the law of the Bahamas where he has been a resident, a process which would prevent him from going bankrupt.

Based on comments from a source familiar with the situation, Newstalk understands that the first of two meetings of creditors under this process took place in London on April 30th, where Mr O’ Reilly secured the required 75 percent majority by value and number of creditors for the voluntary wind-up to take place. It is understood AIB was the only creditor to oppose the process at that meeting

Under Bahamian law, a second meeting of creditors is required within two weeks of the first, which would imply that there could be a meeting sometime during this week. It’s not clear how AIB’s court action in Ireland, which has now been deferred for a month, will impact on this process or whether Mr O’ Reilly, if he succeeds in winning the backing of all other bank creditors under the law of the Bahamas, could be compelled to attend court proceedings here sought by just one lender, AIB.