kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt
After much furore over the failed $2.5 million zipline project, including that the company contracted to do it did not exist, the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) has commenced legal action against the British Virgin Islands-based OCT ENTERPRISES LTD for breach of contract.
At the THA’s post-Executive Council media briefing yesterday, Chief Secretary Farley Augustine showed documentary evidence from searches last May by THA attorneys Alexander Jeremie & Co and BVI law firm Harney Westwood & Riegels (HWR) to support his previous claim earlier this week that the company did not exist in the BVI.
“This is the single largest law firm in the BVI with offices in Singapore and elsewhere in the world. So, it is not a pipsqueak backroom kind of company our attorneys sought to partner with to get this information,” Augustine said.
He said Tobagonians want their money back with interest after the company ghosted the THA after February 2021. He said the last email OCT sent to the Division of Tourism, Culture, Antiquities and Transportation was that its members were in the bushes of Costa Rica and were unavailable.
The THA recruited Alexander Jeremie & Co in September 2021 to sue the OCT for breach of contract for the zipline project.
Lead counsel, former attorney general John Jeremie, said while it seemed simple, a search of the Companies Registry revealed that OCT was not a registered business in T&T. THA employees searched their records but could not find any.
Jeremie explained there was no Certification of Incorporation (CoI) in the THA for OCT. Further, there were no identification records for any of the persons who signed agreements on behalf of OCT.
Despite the unsatisfactory situation, the THA attorneys began breach of contract proceedings in the High Court, and a judge ordered that it be served on OCT in September 2021.
Alexander Jeremie & Co retained HWR by email in May 2022 and learned that OTC Enterprises Ltd was not a registered company in the BVI. HWR searched for the name as it appeared on the footer of the services agreement. The local team returned to the THA and examined contract documents, which disclosed that the company described itself in four different ways.
In addition to OTC Enterprises Ltd, there were OTC Canopy tours, as described in the footer of the services agreement on June 12, 2015.
OTC Enterprises, a BVI Corporation, appeared on ten paid invoices from the THA. There was also the original Canopy Tour on the logo of a wire transfer account information and services agreement in June 2015.
The local team asked the BVI attorneys to search for all four names and two additional entities. The BVI firm wrote back, saying there was no record of those entities.
In September 2022, the THA instructed the local team to commence legal action, which included fraud, against OTC’s promoters. At that time, the THA issued a file to the T&T Police Service.
The team petitioned the High Court on November 5 and obtained a freezing order on the assets of the named promoters. The BVI team followed and got relief against company officials on November 17, freezing their bank accounts.
“We received a tip after the bank froze the records, and based on that, we asked the Virgin Islands attorneys to do another search of one name, using different iterations. That search provided a hit around November 21, and the hit was against OCT ENTERPRISES LTD. The BVI firm then moved to add the company as a party to the action, and we have done the same in Trinidad & Tobago,” Jeremey said.
Augustine said the issue was more than just finding the company. “Do you know what the issue is for me? Somebody took close to $3 million and gave it to a company. In fact, we know who did that, an executive and there was a Secretary in the Division that led the executive to do that. Close to $3 million, and we do not have a zipline,” Augustine said.