Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

High Court judge Jus­tice Se­bas­t­ian Ven­tour has re­ject­ed the sub­mis­sions by at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and the T&T Se­cu­ri­ties Ex­change Com­mis­sion (SEC) that the court has no ju­ris­dic­tion to de­ter­mine a fair val­ue for British West In­di­an Air­ways (BWIA) share­hold­ers. Ven­tour al­so said the SEC should not com­pro­mise its in­de­pen­dence by seek­ing the court to dis­miss the ap­pli­ca­tion of Ho­race Reid who al­leged the SEC failed to pro­tect the rights of mi­nor­i­ty share­hold­ers. In his judg­ment, Ven­tour said: "Fi­nal­ly, hav­ing con­sid­ered the ev­i­dence put be­fore the court so far and hav­ing care­ful­ly con­sid­ered the sub­mis­sions of coun­sel for the de­fen­dants and the claimant, I dis­agree with the view that this court has no ju­ris­dic­tion un­der By-Law 26, para­graph 2(b) to fix a fair val­ue of the claimant's shares.

"Whether at the end of the day, af­ter hear­ing all the ev­i­dence, this court de­cides to dis­miss the claimants claim is an­oth­er mat­ter.

"The point tak­en by coun­sel for the de­fen­dants there­fore fails."

Reid, a Mor­vant res­i­dent, filed a class ac­tion law­suit against the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance on May 12 on be­half of 30 oth­er share­hold­ers. The mat­ter was be­fore Ven­tour in the Port-of-Spain High Court, yes­ter­day. Se­nior Coun­sel Mar­tin Daly, who rep­re­sents the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and the AG, had pre­vi­ous­ly in­di­cat­ed to the court it had no ju­ris­dic­tion un­der the by-law to pro­ceed with Reid's claim and to fix a fair val­ue of the mi­nor­i­ty share­hold­ers' shares. Ter­rence Bharath acts be­half of the SEC. Ven­tour grant­ed him leave to file an ap­peal in the Court of Ap­peal. The SEC, in June filed an ap­pli­ca­tion to be added as a par­ty to the pro­ceed­ings be­cause of Reid's al­le­ga­tions.

Reid's at­tor­ney Lynette See­baran-Suite filed a writ in ac­cor­dance with By-law 26 (2b) of the Se­cu­ri­ty In­dus­try (Takeover By-laws) 2005. The share­hold­ers are seek­ing an or­der fix­ing the fair val­ue of their shares in BWIA which was closed in 2006 to make way for Caribbean Air­lines Lim­it­ed. The mat­ter was ad­journed to De­cem­ber 6 at 9.30 am.