Derek Achong

The Privy Coun­cil has re­served its de­ci­sion in an ap­peal over whether a court can or­der com­pen­sa­tion for an un­paid State con­tract if it (the con­tract) was ap­proved by an unau­tho­rised of­fi­cial. 

At the end of a hear­ing in the Unit­ed King­dom Supreme Court build­ing in Lon­don, Eng­land, yes­ter­day, five Law Lords said they need­ed time to con­sid­er the ap­peal which was brought by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al against Trin­sal­vage En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed. 

The case cen­tred around a $5.75 mil­lion con­tract award­ed to Trin­sal­vage En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed in 2000 for the de­vel­op­ment of the San Fer­nan­do Har­bour. 

The State con­tend­ed that the con­tract was not valid as the then per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port did not have the au­thor­i­ty to ap­prove it as con­tracts val­ued over $1 mil­lion fall un­der the purview of the Cen­tral Ten­ders Board. 

De­liv­er­ing his ini­tial judg­ment in Jan­u­ary 2014, Seep­er­sad agreed that the con­tract was null and void due to the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary over­step­ping her re­mit. 

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad still ruled that the com­pa­ny was en­ti­tled to pay­ment as the State had been un­just­ly en­riched through the con­tract ir­reg­u­lar­i­ty. 

“Al­though the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary act­ed ul­tra vires the pro­vi­sions of the Cen­tral Ten­ders Board Act in en­ter­ing in­to the con­tract with the claimant, the work that was sub­se­quent­ly ef­fect­ed over an ex­tend­ed four-year pe­ri­od, in a pub­lic space that would have been un­der the con­trol and charge of the State of T&T,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said. 

As part of his judg­ment, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad or­dered the par­ties to agree on an in­de­pen­dent ex­pert to as­sess the work per­formed by the com­pa­ny on the project and de­cide on the ap­pro­pri­ate com­pen­sa­tion for it. 

In 2019, Ap­pel­late Judges Nolan Bereaux, Prakash Moo­sai, and Ju­dith Jones dis­missed an ap­peal from the AG’s Of­fice and up­held Jus­tice Seep­er­sad’s de­ci­sion. 

The re­de­vel­op­ment of the area sur­round­ing King’s Wharf, in San Fer­nan­do, has been pro­posed by sev­er­al suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments. 

In 2019, Cab­i­net ap­proved the $1.59 bil­lion San Fer­nan­do Wa­ter­front Re­de­vel­op­ment Project. 

The ini­tial phase in­cludes the up­grade of the Plaza San Car­los His­tor­i­cal Dis­trict, the re­claim­ing of 3.8 hectares of land at King’s Wharf and the re­lo­ca­tion of the Pub­lic Trans­porta­tion Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion main­te­nance fa­cil­i­ty and squat­ters along the for­mer Trinidad Gov­ern­ment Rail­way line. 

The com­pa­ny was rep­re­sent­ed by Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, and Michael Rooplal, while Thomas Roe, KC, led the le­gal team for the AG’s Of­fice.