Analysts, stakeholders back AG’s move to end CLF civil suits

GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­[email protected]

For­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Mar­i­ano Browne, has en­dorsed the de­ci­sion of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie to end long-stand­ing civ­il suits tied to the col­lapse of the CLF con­glom­er­ate, with ma­jor­i­ty share­hold­er Carl­ton Reis call­ing for the State to fi­nal­ly re­lin­quish con­trol and al­low CL Fi­nan­cial (CLF) to re­build.

On Fri­day, Je­re­mie laid in Par­lia­ment the Re­ports of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the col­lapse of the CLF group and the Hin­du Cred­it Union (HCU), re­veal­ing that the State spent ap­prox­i­mate­ly $28 bil­lion res­cu­ing CLF and its sub­sidiaries, with a fur­ther $3 bil­lion to $4 bil­lion spent in sub­se­quent years on le­gal, ac­count­ing and ad­min­is­tra­tive mat­ters linked to the col­lapse. Je­re­mie an­nounced the end of the civ­il ac­tions, cit­ing years of stag­na­tion, bal­loon­ing le­gal costs and the ab­sence of mean­ing­ful progress.

Browne, in analysing the CLF/CLI­CO fall­out, said the move was both nec­es­sary and over­due.

Browne ar­gued that civ­il pro­ceed­ings have his­tor­i­cal­ly pro­duced lit­tle in terms of ac­count­abil­i­ty or fi­nan­cial re­turn.

He not­ed that such cas­es of­ten emerge af­ter a change in gov­ern­ment but rarely ad­vance, point­ing to one civ­il mat­ter in­volv­ing the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go that has re­mained in­ac­tive for more than a decade with­out ev­i­dence ever be­ing pre­sent­ed.

Browne added that if wrong­do­ing tru­ly oc­curred, crim­i­nal charges—not ex­pen­sive and sym­bol­ic civ­il ac­tions—were the prop­er mech­a­nism.

“What re­al­ly should hap­pen is crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties and crim­i­nal charges, which would have se­vere penal­ties. That’s the re­al meat of the mat­ter, and in this par­tic­u­lar in­stance, I think the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has done the right thing by end­ing the civ­il suits. These civ­il ac­tiv­i­ties are just a waste of mon­ey. And, the re­al pur­pose, what we re­al­ly need to pay at­ten­tion to, is gen­er­at­ing enough cash so the State can re­cov­er its mon­ey and the de­pos­i­tors, wher­ev­er they were, could re­cov­er their mon­ey,” he said.

Browne al­so crit­i­cised suc­ces­sive Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tions for fail­ing in their du­ty of over­sight af­ter the State took con­trol of the CLF group.

“No fi­nan­cial state­ments were pre­sent­ed ei­ther by UNC-con­trolled ad­min­is­tra­tion or PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion on these com­pa­nies, on CL Fi­nan­cial in par­tic­u­lar. So the State failed in its du­ty of care, re­gard­less of which par­ty was in pow­er,” he said.

The for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter al­so high­light­ed that Cli­co it­self was lat­er con­firmed to have suf­fi­cient as­sets and had re­paid its li­a­bil­i­ties, rais­ing fur­ther ques­tions about the pro­longed State in­ter­ven­tion.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young de­fend­ed the then gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the mat­ter and placed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for cost­ly en­quiries on the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“It is worth­while re­mind­ing our­selves that the Col­man com­mis­sion of en­quiry was com­menced by the UNC gov­ern­ment,” Young said, adding, “They are the ones that bur­dened the cit­i­zens and tax­pay­ers with the costs as­so­ci­at­ed with the com­mis­sion of en­quiry and the sub­se­quent in­ves­ti­ga­tions un­der­tak­en.”

Young added that Sir An­tho­ny Col­man is­sued “sting­ing neg­a­tive com­ments” about at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen, who had been hired by the UNC at sig­nif­i­cant cost.

He al­so ex­plained that the PNM gov­ern­ment with­held the Col­man Re­port on­ly be­cause the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions had ad­vised that pub­lish­ing it would com­pro­mise on­go­ing crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“The gov­ern­ment was not in­volved in the crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions and cer­tain­ly played no role in the as­sign­ment of po­lice re­sources,” Young said, not­ing that the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion en­sured the re­cov­ery of bil­lions of dol­lars spent in the CLF/CLI­CO bailout.

Amid the wind­ing down of lit­i­ga­tion, ma­jor­i­ty share­hold­er Carl­ton Reis has is­sued a strong call for the State to fi­nal­ly with­draw from CL Fi­nan­cial and al­low share­hold­ers to re­build the con­glom­er­ate.

“Gov­ern­ment should not be in pri­vate busi­ness, and they have been in CLF/CLI­CO for way too long, and we can all see the ef­fects and re­sults of gov­ern­ment con­trol,” Reis said.

He wel­comed the de­ci­sion to lay the Col­man Re­port in Par­lia­ment, de­scrib­ing it as the be­gin­ning of the end of a “long, drawn-out, cost­ly bailout.”

Reis said CLF share­hold­ers are ready to part­ner with the Gov­ern­ment to re­store the group’s op­er­a­tions and con­tribute to na­tion­al eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery.

“We must learn from our mis­takes and use these ex­pe­ri­ences to help us make bet­ter de­ci­sions in the fu­ture,” he said, adding, “CLF can play an in­stru­men­tal role in de­vel­op­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Reis al­so crit­i­cised for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s man­age­ment of the group, say­ing CLF lost its en­tre­pre­neur­ial dri­ve un­der what he de­scribed as op­pres­sive con­di­tions.

“Un­der the op­pres­sion of Im­bert as MOF, the CLF group lost its en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it and ben­e­fit, and this has af­fect­ed the coun­try as a whole,” Reis added.

Ef­forts to con­tact Im­bert for a re­sponse were fu­tile.

He al­so ques­tioned the claim that CL Fi­nan­cial’s loss­es to­talled $32 bil­lion, say­ing it does not match the fig­ures share­hold­ers were pre­vi­ous­ly giv­en.

“That num­ber is way too high,” Reg­is in­sist­ed, say­ing, “Based on our cal­cu­la­tion— what was ac­tu­al­ly in­ject­ed in­to Cli­co and what was be­fore the court—our fig­ures were clos­er to $23 bil­lion. So I don’t know how it reached $32 bil­lion.”

“That $32 bil­lion, it is to­tal­ly ex­ces­sive, and it smells of cor­rup­tion. It smells very dirty.”

With a new ad­min­is­tra­tion now in of­fice, he said share­hold­ers are op­ti­mistic.