The State has been or­dered to pay a lit­tle over $2.3 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion to a com­pa­ny which pro­vid­ed ser­vices to the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM).

High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran made the or­der yes­ter­day as he par­tial­ly up­held a law­suit brought by Triple D’s Equip­ment Rentals Lim­it­ed against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

The law­suit re­lat­ed to ve­hi­cle and ware­house rental ser­vices pro­vid­ed by the com­pa­ny to the ODPM be­tween 2010 and 2016.

The com­pa­ny filed a law­suit in 2021 al­leg­ing that it was owed $5,172,968.94 in un­paid fees.

The AG’s Of­fice de­nied any wrong­do­ing as it claimed that the pay­ment could not be made as the ser­vices were so­licit­ed and pro­vid­ed with­out a prop­er pro­cure­ment process.

It al­so raised is­sues with some of the com­pa­ny’s claims on the ba­sis that there were no writ­ten con­tracts re­gard­ing such.

It al­so filed a coun­ter­claim seek­ing $2,284,932 in spe­cial dam­ages as it claimed that the com­pa­ny un­law­ful­ly seized ship­ping con­tain­ers it was stor­ing for the ODPM when the le­gal dis­pute arose.

Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran agreed with the com­pa­ny’s lawyers led by Kelvin Ramkissoon, that it was en­ti­tled to pay­ment de­spite the pro­cure­ment is­sue raised.

Ramkissoon had claimed that the State could not refuse pay­ment when the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was aware of the con­tracts and the pro­ce­dure utilised by the ODPM to award them.

“Whether there was com­pli­ance with the Cen­tral Ten­ders Board (CTB) is not ma­te­r­i­al as to whether the Claimant is en­ti­tled to com­pen­sa­tion for ser­vices it pro­vid­ed in good faith,” Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran said.

“It is clear that the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was aware of the arrange­ment be­tween the Claimant and the ODPM, and ei­ther im­plied­ly or ex­press­ly rat­i­fied it,” he added.

De­spite the find­ing, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran ruled that the com­pa­ny could not seek to en­force a con­tract for stor­age based on the con­cerns raised over a lack of a writ­ten con­tract.

“The Claimant ought to have known that any con­tract with the min­istry through the ODPM would have to be re­duced in­to writ­ing,” he said.

“De­spite this, not even a con­fir­ma­tion in writ­ing was sent by the Claimant,” he said.

Deal­ing with the coun­ter­claim, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran ruled that the ODPM was nev­er barred from col­lect­ing its ship­ping con­tain­ers as al­leged. He al­so re­ject­ed the State’s claim that the com­pa­ny was over­paid for its ser­vices.

As part of his judg­ment, Jus­tice Ram­cha­ran or­dered the State to pay the com­pa­ny’s le­gal costs for the law­suit.

He al­so grant­ed a 42-day stay of his judg­ment.

The com­pa­ny was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Ra­jiv Sumair, and An­tonel­la Nar­i­nesingh. The AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Roger Kawals­ingh, Na­toya Moore, and Adana Hosang.