In­dar­jit Seu­raj

The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) yes­ter­day was giv­en leave to with­draw a bil­lion dol­lar law­suit against the cash-strapped Cli­co In­vest­ment Bank (CIB). Jus­tice Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar, as a le­gal for­mal­i­ty, re­lin­quished the state en­ter­prise from the mat­ter it had filed un­der the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment to re­cov­er over $1.1 bil­lion in­vest­ed in CIB. At­tor­ney Don­na Den­bow ap­peared for NGC yes­ter­day at the Hall of Jus­tice, Port-of-Spain. Bronock Reid and Fa­rees Ho­sein, coun­sel for state-owned First Cit­i­zens' Bank, said they had re­ceived writ­ten no­tice of NGC's de­ci­sion to with­draw and had no ob­jec­tion to the new ap­pli­ca­tion be­fore the court.

Ear­li­er this month, lawyers for NGC had won a le­gal bat­tle to have CIB in­ter­im man­ag­er Carl Hi­ralal, Maria Daniel, di­rec­tor at Ernst and Young, and Wendy Ho Sing, for­mer deputy in­spec­tor of fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, cross-ex­am­ined on af­fi­davits sworn in sup­port of a wind­ing-up pe­ti­tion for CIB. Days lat­er, lawyers for NGC re­turned to court to with­draw their ob­jec­tion to the wind­ing-up pro­ceed­ings. Lawyers for NGC are in­struct­ed by the NGC board, which is chaired by Lar­ry Howai. Roop Chan Chadeesingh is deputy chair­man. NGC's with­draw­al of its law­suit against CIB, to­geth­er with its re­moval of an ob­jec­tion to the wind­ing-up pe­ti­tion, ef­fec­tive­ly means if the wind­ing-up pe­ti­tion is al­lowed, NGC stands to lose over $1.1 bil­lion in­vest­ed in CIB. The Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIB) is con­tin­u­ing its bid to block the wind­ing-up pro­ceed­ings. NIB has a law­suit seek­ing to re­cov­er close to $700 mil­lion from CIB.