Brian MacCaba - Biography

Brian MacCaba (born 1959) is a multi-millionaire businessman born and raised in Ireland but now primarily based in London and Jerusalem. Although he made his fortune in the e-commerce sector through his company Cognotec, he is perhaps best known for his part in the infamous 'Indecent Proposal' libel case which was the longest-running slander case in British legal history.

Personal

Born Brian McCabe, he was raised in the middle class south Dublin area of Glenageary. His father, Séamus, was a civil servant in the Irish Department of Agriculture, while his mother, Vera, was one of the first two female accountants in Ireland. Raised as a Catholic he attended the rugby-playing, private Christian Brothers school in Monkstown. He went on to University College Dublin, where he was an avid Gaeilgeoir (Irish speaker) heavily involved in the Sudents' Union, and graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce. McCabe also served as auditor of the noted Commerce and Economic Society (his predecessors in that role included Charles Haughey and Feargal Quinn) and was also a classmate and friend of future millionaire Philip Berber, with whom he set up Expert Information Systems based in London in 1984. He later attained a MA from the London School of Economics.

Religion

He converted to Judaism in 1990 after reading more than 200 books on the subject. He subsequently became an important figure in the Jewish community of North London and further afield. He adopted an ultra-orthodox Jewish lifestyle and contributed money to the community. He helped organise several trips of senior Israeli figures to Downing Street to meet Tony Blair and accompanied the influential Shas, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, on one such meeting.

MacCaba describes himself as more heavily influenced by Jewish culture than politics.

Married twice with six children, MacCaba keeps homes in Britain and Jerusalem.

Business

MacCaba has been involved in setting up businesses since his mid-twenties.

His most successful one, however, was Cognotec, a company based in Dublin providing foreign exchange software for large banks and corporations. The company attracted multimillion pound investment from Softbank among others. They also have struck up partnerships with Bloomberg. Cognotec had offices in Ireland, Britain, New York and Tokyo. Cognotec went into receivership in February 2010. The assets were bought by First Derivatives.

MacCaba's exact wealth is unknown, but estimates have ranged from £20 million upwards to hundreds of millions when Cognotec's value was at its highest during the dotcom boom. He also has a number of other investments throughout the world. MacCaba was said to be among the 50 richest people in Ireland, the 50 most important Irish in Britain and among the 30 individuals taking greatest advantage of the net in Europe and Asia.

'Indecent proposal' slander case

MacCaba shot to worldwide notice in 2004 when he took a case against religious court Judge Yaakov Israel Lichtenstein, one of the senior members of the ultra-Orthodox community in Britain. The case became known as the 'Indecent Proposal' case due to its similarity to the movie starring Robert Redford, Indecent Proposal. Based on the evidence presented prior to the hearing at the High Court in London, it emerged that MacCaba had carried on an intimate correspondence in the late 1990s with an ultra-Orthodox woman whom he allegedly attempted to "free" from her marriage, after offering her husband $1 million.

MacCaba alleged Lichtenstein had slandered him in a "long-standing campaign". He accused Lichtenstein of spreading "heinous" allegations that he was a "serial adulterer" and "sexual predator". Matters came to a head when MacCaba had trouble with his child's application to school because of the rumours. Lichtenstein denied the accusations. He said he had not used the term "adulterer," even though he claimed he had received several reports of "inappropriate" behavior by MacCaba toward Jewish women.

The Jewish Chronicle dubbed it the "Case of the Sacred and the Profane" as the intimate marital relations of two families were laid bare and the "bad blood" between the businessman and the rabbi exposed.

The case lasted six weeks and was the longest-running slander trial in UK history. The case was decided in favour of Lichenstein, and MacCaba had to pay costs of £2 million.