Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) has made good on its threat to sue Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land, SC, and a mem­ber of his law cham­bers, over the rep­re­sen­ta­tion they pro­vid­ed in its failed bid to re­cov­er ap­prox­i­mate­ly $2.4 mil­lion in un­paid elec­tric­i­ty charges from now-de­funct ice cream man­u­fac­tur­er Fla­vorite Foods Lim­it­ed. 

On Thurs­day, the com­mis­sion, through its lawyers led by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, of Free­dom Law Cham­bers, filed a breach of con­tract and pro­fes­sion­al neg­li­gence case against Scot­land and at­tor­ney Keisha Ky­dd-Han­ni­bal, both of Vir­tus Cham­bers. 

The law­suit re­lates to the duo’s han­dling of lit­i­ga­tion seek­ing to re­cov­er the ar­rears owed to T&TEC by Fla­vorite Foods. Ques­tions over their pro­fes­sion­al con­duct were first raised by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar while ad­dress­ing Par­lia­ment in June. 

The case is main­ly based on al­leged dis­cov­er­ies of pro­ce­dur­al is­sues in the lit­i­ga­tion that were made by the com­mis­sion’s cur­rent le­gal team af­ter they were re­tained to re­place the duo. 

Through the law­suit, the com­mis­sion is at­tempt­ing to re­coup the ar­rears from its for­mer lawyers, as it is no longer able to pur­sue lit­i­ga­tion against Fla­vorite over the out­stand­ing debt based on the four-year lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od elaps­ing in Jan­u­ary this year, be­fore is­sues with their han­dling of the lit­i­ga­tion were un­earthed.  

In its court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the com­mis­sion ex­plained that it de­cid­ed to pur­sue lit­i­ga­tion against the com­pa­ny when it was dis­con­nect­ed for non-pay­ment. 

Scot­land and Ky­dd-Han­ni­bal were re­tained to pur­sue the civ­il law­suit, which was first filed in late 2022. 

Al­most 10 months lat­er, the com­mis­sion asked the duo whether the com­pa­ny had filed a de­fence and di­rect­ed that they seek a de­fault judg­ment if such had not been done. 

The com­mis­sion claimed that al­though Ky­dd-Han­ni­bal claimed that the case had been served and that it (the case) had to be with­drawn and re­filed, it (the case) was, in fact, struck out on the ba­sis of it not be­ing prop­er­ly served or ad­vanced. 

The com­mis­sion claimed that two days af­ter the first claim was au­to­mat­i­cal­ly struck out, Ky­dd-Han­ni­bal filed a sec­ond ma­te­ri­al­ly iden­ti­cal law­suit. 

The com­mis­sion claimed it was in­formed that a de­fault judg­ment would be pur­sued in re­la­tion to the claim, but sub­se­quent checks by its lawyers to the High Court Reg­is­trar con­firmed no such ac­tion was ever tak­en by ei­ther Scot­land or Ky­dd-Han­ni­bal in re­la­tion to ei­ther case. 

The com­mis­sion claimed that a third case was filed sole­ly by Ky­dd-Han­ni­bal, with­out its knowl­edge, in­struc­tions or au­thor­i­ty in Oc­to­ber 2024. 

It sug­gest­ed that Ky­dd-Han­ni­bal nev­er ex­plained to the court that the two pre­vi­ous cas­es were struck out, as per­mis­sion to pur­sue a third would have been re­quired. 

It al­so claimed that the third claim was not prop­er­ly served on the com­pa­ny and was al­so struck out. 

“The ex­is­tence of the third claim (far less the fact that it was struck out) was nev­er re­port­ed to T&TEC,” the com­mis­sion said, as it not­ed that it on­ly re­cent­ly be­came aware of its ex­is­tence af­ter the change of at­tor­neys. 

The com­mis­sion’s new le­gal team sought to ad­dress the duo’s claims deny­ing any wrong­do­ing in their re­spons­es when the law­suit was threat­ened in June.

It claimed that it re­ject­ed Ky­dd-Han­ni­bal’s claims at­tribut­ing false in­for­ma­tion on the sta­tus of the lit­i­ga­tion to her for­mer sec­re­tary. 

“In any event, the ac­count is self-de­feat­ing,” its lawyers said. 

Its lawyers al­so re­ject­ed Scot­land’s claim that the lit­i­ga­tion was main­ly han­dled by Ky­dd-Han­ni­bal, and sole­ly by her af­ter he was ap­point­ed a Cab­i­net min­is­ter on Au­gust 9, 2024. 

The com­mis­sion not­ed that be­fore Scot­land took up the role, he was the sole pro­pri­etor of the law cham­bers that was re­tained by it. It al­so point­ed out that Scot­land re­mained a part­ner of the firm even af­ter he took a hia­tus from prac­tis­ing law due to the ap­point­ment. 

Re­fer­ring to Scot­land’s ini­tial in­volve­ment in the lit­i­ga­tion, the com­mis­sion’s lawyers said: “Against the con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous doc­u­men­tary record, T&TEC will con­tend that Mr Scot­land can­not now ret­ro­spec­tive­ly con­vert Ms Ky­dd-Han­ni­bal, whom he rec­om­mend­ed and ap­point­ed as his in­struct­ing at­tor­ney and who prac­tised from Vir­tus Cham­bers, in­to a sep­a­rate­ly re­tained at­tor­ney for the pur­pose of in­su­lat­ing him­self from re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the con­duct of the very lit­i­ga­tion which the com­mis­sion had en­trust­ed to him.” 

The com­mis­sion al­so re­ject­ed Scot­land’s al­le­ga­tion that the ac­tion be­ing tak­en by it is po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed. 

“The com­mis­sion’s case does not de­pend up­on po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, as­so­ci­a­tion, or in­nu­en­do, but up­on the writ­ten re­tain­er which he ac­cept­ed and the sub­se­quent con­duct which he him­self ad­mits,” it said. 

The com­mis­sion claimed that the duo was neg­li­gent in fail­ing to ex­er­cise the rea­son­able care, skill and dili­gence that was ex­pect­ed of them. 

It made spe­cif­ic al­le­ga­tions against them in­di­vid­u­al­ly, based on their dif­fer­ent roles through­out the lit­i­ga­tion process and ac­cused them of de­ceit and of mak­ing false rep­re­sen­ta­tions. 

“T&TEC con­tends that the rep­re­sen­ta­tions were made by the de­fen­dants ei­ther with ac­tu­al fac­tu­al knowl­edge of their fal­si­ty, or al­ter­na­tive­ly, reck­less­ly, with­out gen­uine be­lief in their truth and with­out re­gard to whether they were true,” it said. 

In ad­di­tion to the ar­rears it claimed it would have ob­tained had the lit­i­ga­tion been pur­sued prop­er­ly, the com­mis­sion is al­so seek­ing ag­gra­vat­ed and ex­em­plary dam­ages for the duo’s pur­port­ed con­duct. 

“The man­ner of the wrong­do­ing caused in­sti­tu­tion­al em­bar­rass­ment, dis­rup­tion of T&TEC’s le­gal and gov­er­nance func­tions, and ex­po­sure to rep­u­ta­tion­al harm aris­ing from the com­mence­ment and pur­port­ed pros­e­cu­tion of unau­tho­rised pro­ceed­ings in its name,” it said. 

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue, Scot­land ve­he­ment­ly de­nied the al­le­ga­tions lev­elled against him in the law­suit, which he not­ed his at­tor­neys would re­spond to with­in the re­quired time. 

He al­so re­ferred to his com­ments out­side Par­lia­ment when the al­le­ga­tions were first raised by Per­sad-Bisses­sar. 

“I have the doc­u­men­ta­tions in my hand, where not on­ly was the claim re­filed, but a judg­ment in de­fault of ap­pear­ance was made, sup­port­ing with all the doc­u­ments, and we even have a query from the reg­is­trar, query­ing some of the is­sues that will raise the judg­ment, and that was not told to the pub­lic, and I want to set the record straight,” Scot­land said then.

He added, “What we will not do is I will not be si­lenced. I will rile against any in­jus­tice, be it against par­lia­men­tary staff, be it against peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and they will not si­lence my voice with at­tacks on my char­ac­ter, at­tacks on me, and by ex­ten­sion, my fam­i­ly. I not tak­ing that!”  

T&TEC is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Ganesh Sa­roop, Aaron Re­gault, Ami­rah Ram­dass, and Jor­danne Pereira.