Geisha Kow­lessar

Mere weeks be­fore the Jan­u­ary 21 elec­tion, a group of Unit­ed King­dom in­vestors has start­ed pro­ceed­ings seek­ing to re­cov­er dam­ages and com­pen­sa­tion in ex­cess of US$30 mil­lion (TT$200 mil­lion) from the Orville Lon­don-led To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, for an al­leged un­law­ful and il­le­gal ac­tion in a land deal which ap­par­ent­ly turned sour.

The in­vestors claimed they had ini­ti­at­ed a deal with the THA to ac­quire the Cul­lo­den Es­tate in north­west To­ba­go for the con­struc­tion of a ho­tel re­sort. How­ev­er, they claim af­ter be­ing giv­en the im­pres­sion every­thing was go­ing smooth­ly with an ap­pli­ca­tion to ac­quire the land and oth­er rel­e­vant li­cences and in­vest­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly in the planned de­vel­op­ment, the THA did not go through with the deal.

The in­vestors al­so claimed To­ba­go would have re­ceived po­ten­tial spin-off ben­e­fits like em­ploy­ment, de­vel­op­ment of the is­land and for­eign in­vest­ment from the UK and Eu­rope in­to To­ba­go.At­tor­neys for the in­vestors are ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in To­ba­go on Mon­day in a bid to re­solve the mat­ter, but the in­vestors want it set­tled ex­pe­di­tious­ly.

The State has al­so giv­en the THA a dead­line of next Mon­day to re­spond.A let­ter of in­tent to re­cov­er the lost mon­ey from the in­vestors was sent to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, who then hired se­nior at­tor­ney Don­na Prow­ell as lead coun­sel in the mat­ter.

Prow­ell yes­ter­day wrote a three-page let­ter to the THA seek­ing a re­port as to what tran­spired with the ap­pli­ca­tion so the UK in­vestors' claim could be ad­dressed.In le­gal doc­u­ments, the in­vestors were named as the own­ers of the Cul­lo­den Reef, who were seek­ing to pur­chase the Cul­lo­den Es­tate in To­ba­go to de­vel­op a five-star ho­tel. How­ev­er, they were nev­er grant­ed the li­cences by the THA, Prow­ell said yes­ter­day. The in­vestors al­so did not get any ex­pla­na­tion from the THA on why their ap­pli­ca­tion for li­cences did not re­ceive con­sid­er­a­tion, Prow­ell added.

In her let­ter, which was ad­dressed to Lon­don, Prow­ell said the in­vestors were mak­ing the claim against the Gov­ern­ment aris­ing from "al­leged and un­law­ful and il­le­gal ac­tions of the THA."The in­vestors, the let­ter added, were not grant­ed a li­cence un­der the pro­vi­sions of the Fi­nan­cial In­vest­ment Act Chap­ter 70.07 to ac­quire a 184-acre es­tate known as the Cul­lo­den Es­tate in To­ba­go.

The let­ter said the in­vestors al­so ar­gued that their bid to ac­quire the es­tate was frus­trat­ed by the THA, which has since dis­closed a pri­vate in­ter­est in the ac­qui­si­tion of the es­tate for its own pur­pose."In sup­port of this agree­ment, they al­lege fur­ther that the THA has made a ten per cent de­posit for the ac­qui­si­tion of the Cul­lo­den Es­tate, the clo­sure of the sale to the THA has been de­layed by a pend­ing high court ac­tion. The in­vestors con­clud­ed that the THA's fail­ure to con­sid­er the ap­pli­ca­tion was de­lib­er­ate and mo­ti­vat­ed by self-in­ter­est. The in­vestors have ex­pressed the view they may be vic­tims of a pol­i­cy to block the ac­qui­si­tion of To­ba­go land by for­eign­ers," Prow­ell's let­ter said.

Fur­ther, the in­vestors have claimed the al­leged ac­tion of the THA re­sult­ed in a breach by the State of its "ma­te­r­i­al oblig­a­tions" un­der the pro­vi­sions of the bi­lat­er­al in­vest­ment treaty the coun­try ex­e­cut­ed with the Unit­ed King­dom.

De­tails of the claim

1. Act­ing through two com­pa­nies, one reg­is­tered in St Lu­cia and the oth­er in Trinidad un­der the Cul­lo­den Reef tag (in­vestor com­pa­nies), com­menc­ing in 2005 and 2006, they en­tered in­to cer­tain agree­ment for a project in­volv­ing the ac­qui­si­tion of the 184-acre Cul­lo­den Es­tate.The project was de­pen­dent up­on the ac­qui­si­tion of the Cul­lo­den Es­tate, where the ho­tel and re­sort with the an­cil­lary and as­so­ci­at­ed facil­ties were to be con­struct­ed.

2. The in­vestor com­pa­nies made ap­pli­ca­tions for ap­provals to the rel­e­vant state agen­cies for the nec­es­sary li­cences and ap­provals. Among these was an ap­pli­ca­tion for the grant of a li­cence un­der the pro­vi­sions of the Fi­nan­cial In­vest­ment Act for the ac­qui­si­tion of the Cul­lo­den Es­tate.

3. The THA has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for pro­cess­ing and ap­prov­ing ap­pli­ca­tions for the grant of the li­cences.

4. The ap­pli­ca­tion made by the in­vestor com­pa­nies was sub­mit­ted in Feb­ru­ary 2007 through their then at­tor­neys, Hamel-Smith and Com­pa­ny. De­spite sev­er­al meet­ings and en­cour­age­ment from of­fi­cials at the THA, in­clud­ing the chief sec­re­tary, no writ­ten re­sponse has been re­ceived by the in­vestor com­pa­nies to date from the THA in re­sponse to the ap­pli­ca­tion.

5. Con­se­quent­ly, the bid to ac­quire the Cul­lo­den Es­tate has floun­dered and the in­vestors have been put to sub­stan­tial loss and dam­age.

De­fence of claim

The State is seek­ing cer­tain in­for­ma­tion from the THA which must give a de­tailed re­sponse to the fol­low­ing ques­tions:

1. Did the THA re­spond to the in­vestor com­pa­nies' ap­pli­ca­tions for a li­cence? What con­sid­er­a­tion and what was the process to which the ap­pli­ca­tion for the li­cence made by the Cul­lo­den in­vestor com­pa­nies was sub­ject­ed?

2. How many ap­pli­ca­tions for li­cences did the THA re­ceive since 2006?

3. Have any or all of these ap­pli­ca­tions re­ceived no re­sponse, and or have any been con­sid­ered and or ap­proved? Did the ap­pli­ca­tions that were con­sid­ered or ap­proved dif­fer from that of the in­vestors? If so, how?

4. If so, what were the cir­cum­stances un­der which the THA took the de­ci­sion to ac­quire the Cul­lo­den Es­tate it­self?

5. Whether in its de­lib­er­a­tion to ac­quire Cul­lo­den Es­tate, the THA took in­to ac­count that there had been or was pend­ing, an ap­pli­ca­tion for the grant of a li­cence for the ac­qui­si­tion of the es­tate by the in­vestor com­pa­nies, and if so how did the as­sem­bly pro­pose to deal the pos­si­ble le­gal fall­out from this?

6. What ben­e­fit, if any, would the THA re­ceive from the pre­lim­i­nary work car­ried out by the in­vestors with re­spect to the Cul­lo­den Es­tate up­on the clo­sure of the sale?