Former ‘richest’ person in Ireland declared bankrupt

A famed entrepreneur who was once rated Ireland’s richest person was declared bankrupt on Monday in a Dublin court as a bank pursues him for debts exceeding $2.7 billion.

Lawyers for tycoon Sean Quinn withdrew his opposition to a bankruptcy order sought by the former Anglo Irish Bank, the reckless lender at the center of Ireland’s calamitous property crash.

The bankruptcy will force a thorough investigation of Quinn’s finances, which the bank hopes will reveal capital and assets that it can reclaim from Quinn, his wife and five children.

The bank – the most aggressive lender to Ireland’s construction barons – suffered crippling losses as the country’s decade-long property bubble burst.

In 2008, the Quinn family secretly built up to a 28 percent stake in Anglo shares using a poorly regulated financial instrument that hid the scale of their investment from other stockholders.

Ireland nationalized Anglo in 2009 to prevent its collapse. Its bailout is expected to cost taxpayers $36 billion, a bill so great it overwhelmed Ireland’s finances and forced the government last year to negotiate a humiliating loan pact with the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

Hacker views customer data at website of Zappos.com

Online shoe seller Zappos.com says a hacker may have accessed the personal information of up to 24 million customers.

Customer credit card and payment information was not stolen, but names, phone numbers, email addresses, billing and shipping addresses, the last four digits from credit cards and more may have been accessed in the attack, according to an email that CEO Tony Hsieh sent Sunday to employees.

Zappos is contacting customers by email and urging them to change their passwords.

Higher oil demand in 2013 still likely, OPEC forecasts

OPEC says its estimates that world demand for crude will grow next year remain on track, despite the eurozone crisis and other economic problems.

A report from the 12-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries says world demand for 2012 is forecast to grow 1.1 million barrels a day next year. That’s up from the 0.9 percent increase recorded last year.

The report said demand will likely drop in the major industrialized nations, but grow by more than a 1 million barrels daily elsewhere.

– From news service reports