Local insurance company, Clico, recorded a $567.66 million increase in its after-tax profits for the financial year ended December 31, 2025, which was mainly as a result of $340.59 million in income the insurer received from the settlement of the Clico Energy matter.
In its consolidated results for the 2025 financial year, Clico reported after-tax profits of $717.01 million, which was a 380 per cent increase in the $149.35 million the insurance company declared in 2024.
Clico recorded $495.44 million in 'other income' in 2025, which was an increase of more than 10 times the $42.27 million it received in 2024. That other income comprised the $340.59 million settlement of the Clico Energy matter and a $90 million write back of a provision for an insurance claim that was withdrawn.
Clico Energy (now called Process Energy Trinidad Ltd), was a company that was majority 51 per cent owned by the CL Financial group, with 49 per cent held by Switzerland-headquartered, Proman. CL Financial owned 34 per cent of Clico Energy in its own name and 17 per cent of the company was held in trust for Clico.
Just days after the January 30, 2009 announcement of the Government's bailout of Clico and other members of the CL Financial group, then executive chairman of the group, the late Lawrence Duprey, arranged to sell CL Financial's 51 per cent majority stake in Clico Energy to Proman for US$46.5 million on February 3, 2009.
In a judgement delivered on September 30, 2021, High Court Judge Devindra Rampersad found that Duprey acted "oppressively and unfairly prejudicial" to the interests of both CL Financial and Clico when he sold the group’s 51 per cent stake in Clico Energy at "a gross undervaluation" on February 3, 2009.
Rampersad voided the sale of the 51 per cent stake in Clico Energy to Proman, ordering it to restore the shares to CL Financial and Clico and provide an account of all dividends received by Proman between the original transaction in 2009 and the date of his judgment.
Justice Devindra Rampersad determined that the dividends generated by CL Financial's 51 stake in Clico Energy between February 2009 and September 2021 amounted to US$185.9 million. He also ruled that the dividends should accrue interest of 2.5 per cent per year and that the US$46.5 million paid by Proman should be "set off" against the dividend amount.
A Court of Appeal panel that heard the matter (Justices of Appeal Alice Yorke-Soo Hon, Gregory Smith, and Vasheist Kokaram). In his judgment on behalf of the panel, Smith stated: “The sale at a gross undervaluation with the full complicity of Proman was a gamble indicative in my view of the recklessness or turning a blind eye to the obvious.
“These findings show the relevant, intentional or reckless, blind-eye intention of both Duprey and Proman in respect of the negotiation and conclusion of the purchase sale agreement (PSA).
“...The trial judge has found quite clearly that Duprey’s actions in concluding the PSA were dishonest, utterly reprehensible and reeking of impropriety and that Proman was complicit in this impropriety.
“Further, Proman knew of the MoU and that the PSA was an attempt to bypass the same and ‘steal a march on the GORTT’s steps to possibly get the shares in PETL’.”
If Clico, with 17 per cent, received $340.59 million (US$50 million) from the settlement of the Clico Energy matter, then simple arithmetic indicates that CL Financial, which held 34 per cent, received US$100 million, which means the total settlement was US$150 million.
