Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The on­go­ing tri­al of a law­suit over the col­lapse of in­sur­ance gi­ant Colo­nial Life In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny (Cli­co) has been put on hold for a week as the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CBTT) and the for­mer in­sur­ance gi­ant’s cur­rent man­age­ment mull over its fu­ture. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the Cen­tral Bank and Cli­co sought the ad­journ­ment late last week, af­ter At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie an­nounced plans to end civ­il lit­i­ga­tion over the col­lapse of the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny and its par­ent com­pa­ny, CL Fi­nan­cial (CLF). 

The ap­pli­ca­tion was con­sid­ered and ap­proved as the tri­al was set to con­tin­ue be­fore High Court Judge Robin Mo­hammed yes­ter­day. 

Feed­back on the fu­ture of the case is ex­pect­ed to be giv­en when the case comes up for hear­ing, next Mon­day (Jan­u­ary 26). 

The law­suit is seek­ing to hold the com­pa­ny’s de­ceased for­mer chair­man, Lawrence Duprey; his com­pa­ny, Dal­co Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment Ltd; for­mer CLF ex­ec­u­tive An­dre Mon­teil; his com­pa­ny, Stone Street Cap­i­tal; and for­mer CLF cor­po­rate sec­re­tary, Gi­ta Sakal, li­able for de­ci­sions which al­leged­ly led to the col­lapse of the com­pa­ny and a mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar gov­ern­ment bailout and takeover in 2009. 

They are ac­cused of mis­man­ag­ing the com­pa­ny by mis­ap­ply­ing and mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing the com­pa­ny’s in­come and as­sets to the detri­ment of pol­i­cy­hold­ers and in­vestors. 

Through the law­suit, first filed in 2011, the Cen­tral Bank and Cli­co were seek­ing dam­ages and resti­tu­tion for the loss­es suf­fered by the com­pa­ny dur­ing the tenure of the ex­ec­u­tives.

Since the tri­al com­menced ear­li­er this month, lawyers for the Cen­tral Bank and Cli­co led the ev­i­dence of two wit­ness­es—for­mer cen­tral bank gov­er­nor Ewart Williams and the CBTT’s man­ag­er of in­sur­ance, Na­tal­ie Roopchands­ingh. 

Williams gave ev­i­dence and was cross-ex­am­ined by the le­gal teams for all the de­fen­dants. At the time of the ad­journ­ment, Roopchands­ingh was in the process of be­ing cross-ex­am­ined over her ev­i­dence in the case. 

In the ad­journ­ment ap­pli­ca­tion, at­tor­ney Ele­na Arau­jo said the Cen­tral Bank had to con­sid­er the re­port from the Sir An­tho­ny Col­man Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) in­to the col­lapse of Cli­co and CLF, which was laid by Je­re­mie in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day. 

Af­ter the CoE com­plet­ed its work and pro­duced its re­port in June 2016, the re­port was not made pub­lic but was in­stead sent to the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) to de­ter­mine whether crim­i­nal charges could be pur­sued. 

Arau­jo said that her clients need­ed time to con­sid­er the vo­lu­mi­nous re­port (676 pages) and ob­tain le­gal ad­vice on whether the com­mis­sion’s find­ings in­ter­sect with the al­le­ga­tions made in the law­suit cur­rent­ly un­der ju­di­cial con­sid­er­a­tion. 

Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day, Je­re­mie said the State had in­curred be­tween $3 to $4 bil­lion in le­gal, ac­count­ing and ad­min­is­tra­tive costs in ad­di­tion to the ap­prox­i­mate­ly $28 bil­lion that was ex­pend­ed to bail out CLF and Cli­co. 

He said the State could no longer jus­ti­fy con­tin­u­ing ex­pen­sive lit­i­ga­tion that has not pro­duced mean­ing­ful re­sults. Je­re­mie said he pro­posed to end civ­il pro­ceed­ings in a cost ef­fec­tive man­ner.

Af­ter the bailout in 2009, sev­er­al groups of Cli­co pol­i­cy­hold­ers filed cas­es seek­ing to re­coup their in­vest­ments. 

In 2016, the Privy Coun­cil dis­missed a case from a group of EF­PA pol­i­cy­hold­ers, who were seek­ing to be re­paid their full in­vest­ments like tra­di­tion­al pol­i­cy­hold­ers. 

In Oc­to­ber last year, a large group of British Amer­i­can In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny (BAICO) pol­i­cy­hold­ers from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and Grena­da lost their nov­el law­suit in the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) over the T&T Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to on­ly pro­vide pro­tec­tion to lo­cal pol­i­cy­hold­ers and not those of CLF’s re­gion­al sub­sidiaries.