Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Dr Alvin Hi­laire will have to wait just over six months for the tri­al of his mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar law­suit over his ter­mi­na­tion.

High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad has set No­vem­ber 2 for the start of the tri­al. The date was fixed dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing be­fore him yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad al­so set dead­lines for the fil­ing of sub­mis­sions on the cross-ex­am­i­na­tion of Dr Hi­laire and Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment, and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Dr Kennedy Swarats­ingh.

In brief sub­mis­sions, Dr Hi­laire’s at­tor­ney, Se­nior Coun­sel Stu­art Young, again sug­gest­ed that the mat­ter should be set­tled be­fore tri­al, based on ad­mis­sions made in the par­ties’ ini­tial court fil­ings.

“Li­a­bil­i­ty could be con­ced­ed and we could get to quan­tum,” Young said. “We are re­al­ly anx­ious to have this mat­ter com­plet­ed be­cause it is the claimant who is suf­fer­ing.”

How­ev­er, Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan, who is lead­ing the le­gal team for the Cab­i­net, dis­agreed. He main­tained that Jus­tice Ram­per­sad should de­ter­mine both li­a­bil­i­ty and quan­tum af­ter a full tri­al and le­gal sub­mis­sions.

Dr Hi­laire was ap­point­ed Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor to re­place Jwala Ram­bar­ran, who was ter­mi­nat­ed in De­cem­ber 2015.

His con­tract, which was due to ex­pire in De­cem­ber this year, was ter­mi­nat­ed last June.

In end­ing his tenure, the Gov­ern­ment claimed that Dr Hi­laire breached the Cen­tral Bank Act by en­gag­ing in of­fi­cial mis­con­duct and fail­ing to prop­er­ly car­ry out his du­ties and func­tions.

Dr Hi­laire, how­ev­er, con­tends that on June 24 last year, Dr Swarats­ingh vis­it­ed his of­fice and pres­sured him to re­sign.

He al­leged that Swarats­ingh told him Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was dis­sat­is­fied with his re­fusal to al­low Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass to au­dit the Cen­tral Bank’s ac­counts.

Ac­cord­ing to Dr Hi­laire, he re­spond­ed that the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al had ceased to be the Cen­tral Bank’s ex­ter­nal au­di­tor in 2024 at her own re­quest. He al­so claimed that he met with her and in­di­cat­ed she could still re­view any spe­cif­ic dis­crep­an­cies re­lat­ed to T&T’s fis­cal ac­counts.

Dr Hi­laire fur­ther al­leged that Swarats­ingh raised con­cerns about the ap­point­ment of BDO T&T as the Cen­tral Bank’s ex­ter­nal au­di­tor, cit­ing pur­port­ed links to Young’s broth­er, An­gus.

He main­tained that the firm was se­lect­ed through a com­pet­i­tive and in­de­pen­dent pro­cure­ment process and that there was no con­nec­tion, as Young’s broth­er had left the com­pa­ny in 2014.

Dr Hi­laire claimed he re­quest­ed time to seek le­gal ad­vice, but Swarats­ingh in­sist­ed he de­cide im­me­di­ate­ly whether to re­sign or face re­vo­ca­tion of his ap­point­ment.

Through the law­suit, Dr Hi­laire is seek­ing de­c­la­ra­tions that his ter­mi­na­tion was un­law­ful, along with ap­prox­i­mate­ly $9.8 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion.

The claim in­cludes salary and ben­e­fits he would have re­ceived had his con­tract not been ter­mi­nat­ed, as well as dam­ages for emo­tion­al dis­tress and al­leged breach­es of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

Ram­bar­ran, who had been ap­point­ed in Ju­ly 2012, was dis­missed by for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert af­ter an­nounc­ing that the coun­try was in a re­ces­sion and dis­clos­ing the largest for­eign ex­change users.

Co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad al­so presided over Ram­bar­ran’s wrong­ful dis­missal case. Rep­re­sent­ed by Ram­lo­gan, Ram­bar­ran suc­ceed­ed and was award­ed $5.47 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion.

The Court of Ap­peal lat­er up­held the rul­ing on li­a­bil­i­ty but slight­ly re­duced the dam­ages.

Dr Hi­laire is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys An­tho­ny Bul­lock and Im­ran Ali.

Ram­lo­gan is as­sist­ed by Krys­tal Jal­im and Lau­ra-Lee Hack­shaw in rep­re­sent­ing the Cab­i­net.