Jamaican QC expected in T&T tomorrow to take Clico brief

Jamaican lawyer Vincent Nelson, QC, will arrive in T&T tomorrow. Nelson is the newly-appointed lead counsel in the Ministry of Finance’s legal team at the Clico/HCU Commission of Enquiry. Along with Jagdeo Singh and Roger Kawalsingh, he replaced fired attorneys Fyard Hosein, SC, and Michael Quamina.

Hosein and Quamina were terminated by e-mail earlier this month. No reason was given for their removal. They were replaced initially with Law Association president Seenath Jairam, SC, and COP chairman Joseph Toney and Singh. After public outcry, Toney and Jairam returned their briefs and Nelson and Kawalsingh were chosen to replace them.

Nelson was scheduled to attend the enquiry last Thursday but was stranded in his home country when Hurricane Sandy pounded the island on Wednesday. Asked yesterday when he would arrive in T&T, a commission source said “Sunday.” A graduate of the University of Birmingham, he spent the first 12 years of his legal career as adviser and senior executive of several top United Kingdom companies.

This was followed by a thriving practice specialising in large-scale, multi-party commercial litigation and since 1992, he has regularly instructed in high-profile commercial disputes involving some of the UK and United States’ most well-known names, his profile said.

The Advocacy Training Council of England and Wales ranked Nelson a Grade A trainer of lawyers and he was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2001. He is the author of a leading standard legal textbook, The Law of Broadcasting and Entertainment.