Gail Alexan­der

There was sec­ond blow for At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, yes­ter­day, this time in Mi­a­mi courts again.

This is how Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Persd-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day deemed a Flori­da Ap­peals Court judg­ment up­hold­ing the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of Ar­mour and Mi­a­mi law firm Se­quor Law from rep­re­sent­ing Gov­ern­ment in the civ­il as­set for­fei­ture case con­cern­ing the Pi­ar­co Air­port ter­mi­nal

Gov­ern­ment filed an ap­peal in June 2022 against an April 2022 rul­ing by Flori­da cir­cuit judge Reem­ber­to Di­az, who had ap­proved a mo­tion to dis­qual­i­fy Ar­mour and Se­quor Law from rep­re­sent­ing Gov­ern­ment in the mat­ter.

This, af­ter ex-Min­is­ter Bri­an Kuei Tung’s at­tor­neys sought to dis­qual­i­fy Ar­mour and the law firm. This was on the ba­sis that Ar­mour once rep­re­sent­ed Kuei Tung in the Pi­ar­co Air­port mat­ter T&T. Kuei Tung’s mo­tion was sup­port­ed by busi­ness­man Steve Fer­gu­son.

Gov­ern­ment had sought to ex­pe­dite the ap­peal but it was heard on Jan­u­ary 17, 2023.

Kuei Tung’s at­tor­neys point­ed out that Ar­mour had rep­re­sent­ed Kuei Tung in T&T courts over 2003-2008. The US law firm White and Case, rep­re­sent­ing Gov­ern­ment, de­fend­ed the mat­ter.

On Wednes­day, in Flori­da’s Third Dis­trict Court of Ap­peal, Judges Er­ic Hen­don, Mon­i­ca Gor­do and Alexan­der Bokor af­firmed Di­az’s rul­ing.

The rul­ing in­di­cat­ed that the “bur­den of proof” was met to sup­port the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of both Ar­mour and Se­quor Law.

Ar­mour didn’t re­spond to T&T Guardian queries on the out­come yes­ter­day. Nor did for­mer AG Faris Al-Rawi re­spond on if he’ll con­tin­ue to rep­re­sent T&T in the mat­ter, af­ter Ar­mour re­cused him­self from the case last year.

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar, via a state­ment, said, “Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley should not be al­lowed to sweep this one un­der the car­pet. If Al-Rawi was bad, Ar­mour is even worse!

“This is a slap in the face of the Gov­ern­ment. Nev­er be­fore in T&T’s his­to­ry has an At­tor­ney Gen­er­al caused such great in­ter­na­tion­al shame and em­bar­rass­ment to his coun­try, gov­ern­ment and pro­fes­sion.”

She added, “It’s in­con­ceiv­able that Ar­mour (who’s not known to be a crim­i­nal prac­ti­tion­er) could have for­got­ten that he act­ed as Se­nior Coun­sel for a de­fen­dant in the Pi­ar­co Air­port mat­ters in­volv­ing Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh, Steve Fer­gu­son and for­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter Bri­an Kuei Tung.

“This wasn’t a run-of-the-mill mat­ter – it was an im­por­tant, po­lit­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive and po­lit­i­cal­ly dri­ven case against a for­mer Prime Min­is­ter, gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters and high-pro­file busi­ness­men. No doubt, Ar­mour was well paid for his ser­vices and he ben­e­fit­ed im­mense­ly from his re­tain­er to rep­re­sent his client.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Ar­mour had lost all cred­i­bil­i­ty and should demit of­fice.

“As the tit­u­lar head of the Bar no less, he’s no longer be­liev­able. His role in these cas­es was not that of a ‘note tak­er’ ... he was heav­i­ly in­volved in the mat­ter to such an ex­tent that he cross-ex­am­ined wit­ness­es and made le­gal sub­mis­sions. His at­tempt to por­tray his role as sim­ple and pe­riph­er­al is a bla­tant lie and it’s a most se­ri­ous vi­o­la­tion of the Code of Ethics in the le­gal pro­fes­sion.

“Per­haps the file dis­ap­peared along with his mem­o­ry when he swore that fate­ful af­fi­davit for the state in this mat­ter against his own for­mer client.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Ar­mour has com­pro­mised the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the Gov­ern­ment.

“Whilst Dr Row­ley ig­nored calls for Ar­mour’s dis­missal by say­ing the mat­ter was on ap­peal, he can no longer ig­nore the raw facts and re­al­i­ty - the US Ap­pel­late Court has now de­liv­ered its rul­ing on Ar­mour’s trans­gres­sions.”

She said the US courts had unan­i­mous­ly found Ar­mour’s con­duct to be wor­thy of such se­ri­ous con­dem­na­tion that both he and the Gov­ern­ment’s law firm, Se­quor Law, were dis­qual­i­fied.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so called on Row­ley to dis­close the cost of le­gal fees paid to Se­quor Law by the Gov­ern­ment.

“All of that mon­ey has now gone to waste be­cause it was taint­ed by Ar­mour’s con­flict of in­ter­est, which re­sult­ed in his dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion from rep­re­sent­ing T&T any fur­ther in the case”

She called for the name of the firm that’s re­placed Se­quor Law, how it was se­lect­ed and amount of le­gal fees paid to that firm.

“Res­ig­na­tion isn’t the on­ly op­tion - the UNC de­mands im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s con­duct to de­ter­mine whether charges of con­spir­a­cy to per­vert the course of jus­tice and mis­con­duct in pub­lic of­fice should be laid,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar added.

How it went from 2022 to Jan Ap­peal

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, who once rep­re­sent­ed ex-min­is­ter Bri­an Kuei Tung, had said he dis­closed an “ap­par­ent con­flict of in­ter­est” to Se­quor Law at an ini­tial meet­ing on March 30, 2022 - two weeks af­ter he was ap­point­ed AG and would have re­lied on that firm’s ad­vice.

Ar­mour said he was “walled off” by Se­quor Law af­ter in­di­cat­ing he’d been one of Kuei Tung’s lawyers. He had de­scribed him­self as “ba­si­cal­ly a note tak­er” in the mat­ter with min­i­mal role.

In June, Ar­mour con­firmed he had a mem­o­ry lapse when he filed an af­fi­davit on April 24 and was pre­pared to cor­rect the record on April 27.

How­ev­er, Cir­cuit Judge Reem­ber­to Di­az had found that both Ar­mour and Se­quor Law were dis­qual­i­fied from con­tin­u­ing to rep­re­sent T&T in the case. Of note were that Ar­mour rep­re­sent­ed Kuei Tung over 2003-08 in crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings in T&T and that Steve Fer­gu­son was al­so a de­fen­dant in that mat­ter.

It was al­so not­ed that on March 16, 2022, Ar­mour was ap­point­ed AG and on March 30, in his first con­fer­ence call with Se­quor Law, in­di­cat­ed he’d pre­vi­ous­ly de­fen­ded Kuei Tung in the crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings.

Among oth­er points con­cern­ing Ar­mour, it was not­ed that the Flori­da Rules of Pro­fes­sion­al Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty ex­press­ly pro­hib­it an at­tor­ney from serv­ing as coun­sel on be­half of a client who is di­rect­ly averse to a for­mer client in the same or sub­stan­tial­ly sim­i­lar pro­ceed­ing. Di­az’s or­der stat­ed Se­quor Law was work­ing with and for Ar­mour, who was pro­hib­it­ed from rep­re­sent­ing T&T in a mat­ter di­rect­ly ad­verse to his for­mer client.

Ex AG Faris Al-Rawi had rep­re­sent­ed T&T af­ter Ar­mour re­cused him­self from the mat­ter and Gov­ern­ment hired the White and Case law firm to re­place Se­quor Law on the Pi­ar­co civ­il mat­ter, which was due in US court last Sep­tem­ber. But $30 mil­lion in le­gal fees spent on Se­quor Law are now un­re­cov­er­able, it was con­firmed last year. Kuei Tung’s at­tor­neys, in the Jan­u­ary 2023 ap­peal by Gov­ern­ment, had claimed Ar­mour’s “walling off” didn’t oc­cur be­fore April 15, 2022, that “con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion was shared” and they didn’t sub­scribe to the view that Ar­mour was a mi­nor rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

White and Case, rep­re­sent­ing Gov­ern­ment, in­di­cat­ed that Flori­da law pro­vid­ed for dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion and sanc­tions from the Flori­da Bar, but Ar­mour wasn’t a mem­ber or au­tho­rised to prac­tice there. The firm-main­tained Ar­mour re­cused him­self since April 15, 2022, and was “screened off.”