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Monday, July 14, 2025

AG dismisses criticisms over Jones

by

20160304

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi is dis­miss­ing crit­i­cisms by some over the State's de­ci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue the law­suit against for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of Petrotrin Mal­colm Jones.

The bil­lion dol­lar case for neg­li­gence over the com­pa­ny's failed low sul­phur diesel plant was brought against Jones un­der for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wayne Sturge and oth­ers have crit­i­cised Al-Rawi for the dis­con­tin­u­ance of the case, say­ing Jones had ques­tions to an­swer.

How­ev­er, Al- Rawi, in a state­ment, said those views of Sturge and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Garvin Nicholas were "en­tire­ly un­sus­tain­able."

A re­lease from the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs said: "The is­sue at hand is why was the rel­e­vant and ma­te­r­i­al ev­i­dence in the ar­bi­tra­tion pro­ceed­ings that di­rect­ly im­pact­ed the Petrotrin vs Jones lit­i­ga­tion sup­pressed."

The re­lease added the AG and the Petrotrin board "ac­cept­ed" the ad­vice of Ja­maican Queen's Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son, "whose un­equiv­o­cal and clear opin­ion was and is that the mat­ter against Mr Jones was un­sus­tain­able."

The re­lease said the claim against Jones was ini­ti­at­ed on May 3, 2013 on the ba­sis of writ­ten ad­vice by Vin­cent Nel­son, QC, and Rus­sell Mar­tineau, SC, who both opined that there was a pri­ma fa­cie civ­il case un­der the Com­pa­nies Act to be an­swered by Jones for an al­leged breach of du­ty of care and dili­gence as a di­rec­tor and ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of Petrotrin in re­la­tion to the Gas to Liq­uid Project.

It said the High Court pro­ceed­ing against Jones is and was di­rect­ly and in­ti­mate­ly re­lat­ed to the WGTL Ar­bi­tra­tion Pro­ceed­ings against Petrotrin which com­menced in two phas­es and which were heard in Cana­da and the Unit­ed King­dom.

The re­lease said Jones specif­i­cal­ly re­lied in his de­fence to the claim against him up­on the ev­i­dence in ar­bi­tra­tion pro­ceed­ings.

The AG state­ment said, how­ev­er, that "none of the ma­te­r­i­al in the ar­bi­tra­tion pro­ceed­ings was dis­closed by Petrotrin in the High Court pro­ceed­ings and did not form part of the case record at the High Court."


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