Derek Achong

The High Court has or­dered the ap­point­ment of a re­ceiv­er to wind up and sell the per­son­al as­sets and en­ti­ties owned by in­vest­ment ad­vi­sor, Lawrence Cole, with the view to dis­trib­ute the pro­ceeds to peo­ple who in­vest­ed over $36 mil­lion with the Chris­t­ian Cred­it Union and sev­er­al re­lat­ed en­ti­ties un­der Cole's con­trol. In a press re­lease yes­ter­day, The Trinidad and To­ba­go Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion (TTSEC) said the ac­tion came af­ter the com­mis­sion re­ceived sev­er­al com­plaints from in­vestors against Cole and his re­lat­ed en­ti­ties.

Cole was the prin­ci­pal in­vestor of Al­pha Sav­ings & Trusts Ltd and had con­trol­ling in­ter­ests in Flag­ship Fi­nan­cial In­vest­ments Co-op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety, Safe Hold­ings and Trust Ltd and Chris­t­ian Cred­it Union Co-op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety Ltd. In sup­port of its claim, TTSEC pro­vid­ed the court with a af­fi­davit from Raphael Ro­many, from the TTSEC's Le­gal Ad­vi­so­ry and En­force­ment Di­vi­sion, which showed over $36 mil­lion in in­vest­ments with the above men­tioned com­pa­nies. This af­fi­davit was pre­pared us­ing re­sults of a pub­lic ad­ver­tise­ment, invit­ing a re­sponse of those who have in­vest­ed in the com­pa­nies.

It al­so re­vealed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly $64,000 had been re­couped thus far by in­vestors. TTSEC in­ves­ti­ga­tions al­so showed a to­tal of $23 mil­lion had been bor­rowed from the group of com­pa­nies. In pass­ing judg­ment last Fri­day in the Port-of-Spain High Court, Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones, or­dered the ap­point­ment of a re­ceiv­er who would be au­tho­rised to re­ceive in­come from any "loan in­vest­ment", "bond mar­ket", "sav­ings or de­posit ac­count" in the name of the above com­pa­nies. The re­ceiv­er al­so will have to pro­vide an ac­count of all mon­ey in­vest­ed in the pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned in­vest­ment schemes.

An in­junc­tion al­so was grant­ed, pre­vent­ing Cole and the above men­tioned com­pa­nies, from so­lic­it­ing in­vestors for in­vest­ing in un­reg­is­tered se­cu­ri­ties. Jones al­so de­clared that Cole and his as­so­ciate com­pa­nies were in breach of sev­er­al sec­tions of the Se­cu­ri­ties In­dus­tries Act, Chap 83:02, in­clud­ing is­su­ing Cer­tifi­cates of Bond Mar­ket, In­vest­ments and Loan In­vest­ments to mem­bers of the pub­lic with­out be­ing reg­is­tered with the TTSEC (sec­tion 65)(1). The judg­ment al­so de­clared all such cer­tifi­cates is­sued by Flag­ship Fi­nan­cial In­vest­ments Co-op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety and Safe Hold­ings and Trust Ltd to be il­le­gal, null and void. Jones or­dered the group to dis­gorge to the TTSEC, all prof­its ob­tained as a re­sult of non-com­pli­ance with the act.