Denis O’Brien, Canouan Estate property owner and former CEO of Digicel in the Caribbean, may have wished for a quiet retirement in Southern Portugal but has perhaps picked the wrong local CEO.
In August 2016, O’Brien appointed fellow Irishman Sean Moriarty, who had no relation to Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis, as CEO of Quinta do Lago, O’Brien’s Algarve resort in Portugal, where he had previously worked at Topaz Energy in Ireland. Within a year, he had hired Dawid Combrinck, also an ex-Topaz, to work alongside him.
Regrettably, Combrinck subjected O’Brien’s director of security to two assaults in mid-October 2022 at Quinta do Lago, following the loss of expensive computer equipment in a local bushfire that he had neglected to insure. With a criminal complaint pending, Moriarty fired O’Brien’s loyal director, John O’Gorman, erased the CCTV video surveillance tapes of the physical assaults, and hired the local head of police, who had no relevant experience, to replace O’Gorman as head of security (including video surveillance).
Then, mysteriously, Moriarty’s lawyer, Carmen Baptista Rosa of PLMJ in Portugal, appeared on record to represent both O’Gorman and Moriarty, gaining access to all of O’Gorman’s criminal complaints. Files are considered a criminal matter in developed jurisdictions.
Denis O’Brien has now fired Dawid Combrinck from Quinta do Lago, despite Moriarty and his lawyer continuing to flout the Portuguese legal code. Some loyalty at least.
