Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH) has filed High Court action against the son of a former Sinn Fein Chairman of Fermanagh District Council alleging that he circulated defamatory material about the company and its senior executives.

The Derrylin based company alleges that material was posted online and also emailed by Enda Corrigan from Enniskillen as part of a campaign supposedly in support of Seán Quinn, the former billionaire who founded and lost control of the manufacturing empire.

QIH has sought to link Mr. Corrigan, the son of the late politician Paul Corrigan, to the defamatory material arising from information uncovered in a previous legal action, when it sought from Facebook the names of anonymous posters critical of its and supportive of Mr. Quinn.

Mr. Quinn is not party to the legal action and has not been accused by QIH of defaming it.

The law firm Byrne Wallace wrote to Mr. Corrigan earlier this month, acting on behalf of QIH and its chief executive, Liam McCaffrey, its chief operating officer, Kevin Lunney and its financial director, Dara O’Reilly in correspondence seen by this newspaper.

QIH alleged that Mr. Corrigan defamed it and the three executives in e-mails sent last year to several existing and former directors of QIH, including executives at US hedge funds that financially back it.

The allegedly defamatory material was contained in letters attached to the e-mails entitled 'Questions for QBP management'. QBP is Quinn Building Products, QIH’s trading name.

The material was also allegedly posted on a website, cflcg.com (Cavan/Fermanagh/Leitrim Community Group) that is supportive of Mr. Quinn in his attempts to win back control of the multibillion euro businesses.

QIH demanded that Mr. Corrigan give 12 legal undertakings, including that he remove the website and a similar Facebook page, and sought proposals for compensation.

According to The Irish Times, ten days later, the legal letter was posted on cflcg.com in its 'News' section, under the heading 'Legal Threats to Our Community' in which the posting identified Mr. Corrigan as “our chairperson”. It accused the company of issuing “bully boy legal threats” and alleged six similar legal letters had been issued to other people.

QIH filed its High Court action against Mr. Corrigan last Thursday.

He did not respond to an e-mail associated with him when The Impartial Reporter made contact this week, however a spokesman from the Cavan, Fermanagh and Leitrim Community Group told this newspaper: “This is a new low”.

“We have been inundated with support for Enda Corrigan, the community is behind him," he said.

Earlier this month, QIH’s chairman, Adrian Barden wrote to its staff warning of a “resumption of false allegations and intimidation” against its executives by anonymous people purporting to be acting in support of Mr. Quinn, who has previously criticised any such intimidation.