In 2005, O’Brien began to acquire a stake in INM, initially purchasing a 5% stake. At that time, Sir Anthony O’Reilly exerted control over the media group. In 2008, O’Brien increased his stake in INM to nearly 26%, acquiring six million shares and consequently the power to block special resolutions.
By 2012, the O’Reilly family’s control over the company, which spanned almost 40 years, ended after the departure of INM CEO Gavin O’Reilly, son of Sir Anthony O’Reilly. Leslie Buckley, a business associate of O’Brien, later assumed the role of chairman. Two years later, Robert Pitt became the new CEO of INM.
Come 2016, a potential acquisition of Newstalk was considered by INM board members. However, a disagreement about the company’s valuation between Robert Pitt and Leslie Buckley led to the deal’s termination. The following year, a prospective €4 million acquisition of Celtic Media by INM was abandoned amidst a wave of controversy. Subsequently, Pitt exited INM and filed a protected disclosure against Leslie Buckley to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement.
In 2018, Mr Justice Peter Kelly, then President of the High Court, appointed two inspectors to examine an alleged data breach purportedly authorised by Leslie Buckley and funded by O’Brien. In 2019, a significant portion of O’Brien’s stake in INM was sold to Belgian firm Mediahuis, resulting in a loss exceeding €400 million.
In 2021, the Data Protection Commission discovered a ‘security incident’ involving ‘processing of personal data’ in 2014. It was found that the breach, which involved searching the emails of both current and ex-journalists and company executives, had violated data privacy laws and lacked legal justification. By 2022, a group of 19 people associated with the company, whose emails were unlawfully accessed in the 2014 breach, reached a settlement with Mediahuis Ireland (formerly INM).
In 2023, Gavin O’Reilly and Karl Brophy, previous executives at INM, resolved their damage claim dispute against the firm and its past chairman, Leslie Buckley. Subsequently, in 2024, after a lengthy six-year inquiry, the investigators handed over their conclusive report to Mr Justice Garrett Simons, a High Court judge. The report was then made public by the Corporate Enforcement Authority. The examiners determined that O’Brien had been informed that emails within the media group were under scrutiny in a bid to determine the reasons behind the renewal of a lawyer’s contract with the company. They established that there had been technical infringements of the Data Protection Acts but uncovered no transgressions of company law.