Tag: CL Financial bailout

CL Financial bailout – hide and seek…part two

The meaning of the PM’s speech of 27th July 2017 was truly sobering. 27 July was the anniversary of the Muslimeen coup, the 27th anniversary, as it so happens. This might look like a mere coincidence, but stay with me here.

Dr Rowley told us that the CL Financial group, which has been under the direction of a State-controlled Board since 2009, was either not in control or themselves culpable in this serious situation now upon the country. The failure to keep proper audited accounts and the issue of the alleged diversion of Angostura’s dividends, all add to the impression of a huge, out-of-control entity operating to our collective detriment. It also seems from that statement that the only substantial repayment of CLF’s debt to the State was the $7.5 Billion earned from the sale of shares in Methanol Holdings Trinidad Ltd. Where did the hefty dividends from Republic Bank Ltd go? Continue reading “CL Financial bailout – hide and seek…part two” →

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CL Financial bailout – hide and seek

This title denotes the search for truth and the meaning of that truth. The main issue to be confronted this week is the attempt to once again create an alternative narrative, this time in relation to interest charged on the Public Money spent in this bailout.

Every year, I observe The Season of Reflection, between Emancipation Day on 1st August; Independence Day on 31st August and Republic Day on 24th September. There appears to be a meaning in the sequence of these holidays in terms of both the years and dates. Some notion of progress from the barbarism of Slavery to the undignified bad-old days of Colonialism to the better days we now experience as citizens of a Republic. But that progress did not come just so, there had to be real pressure for change.

Searching for progress and understanding requires us to go deep, even if only for a spell, hence The Season of Reflection.

This Season opens at a charged moment in the riveting CL Financial bailout, which I described last week as a bold-faced snatch-and-grab. Of course I was referring to the attempt by the shareholders to regain control of the CLF group without a binding agreement in place to ensure repayment of the $15 Billion in Public Money spent in this bailout. Continue reading “CL Financial bailout – hide and seek” →

Joint Media Statement on the lack of Transparency in the CL Financial Bailout

Dear Collegues

Please see attached a Joint Media statement from Mr Afra Raymond (www.afraraymond.net), Mr David Walker and myself Rishi Maharaj (CEO Disclosure Today). “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.” This quote seems to epitomize the current scenario the country is facing regarding the CL Financial fiasco. Over the past eight and a half years each of us in our own capacity have made several requests for financial information regarding the bailout.

Additionally The Prime Minister’s recent statement on the CLF legal actions also raises some interesting questions. There now seem to be more questions than answers after the Prime Minister’s statement but at least we have made a start.

It is therefore our view that in the best interests of protecting taxpayers, it is clear that the government should immediately lift the veil that they erected and be open with the public.
Regards,
—
Rishi Maharaj
Chief Executive Officer
Disclosure Today
http://www.disclosure.today | rishi@disclosure.today
120 Abercromby Street
Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago

CL Financial bailout – the Tangled Web

tangled-web

“…The official also pointed out that no interest was ever charged on the amount of money that was loaned to the CLF group…”
—Quote from an anonymous ‘Government official’ in this newspaper on 21 July 2017.

Well yes.

A bold-faced snatch-and-grab is now being attempted and our total vigilance is now required. According to the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protestors I saw at Zuccotti Park in 2012 –

‘If you are not Outraged, You haven’t been paying attention!’

Last week I spoke to the epic legal mangle which was about to engulf us all in relation to the CL Financial bailout fiasco. It is important to know that it does not matter if you had an investment in CLF or were a shareholder. It does not matter at all. This issue is so huge that every citizen has skin in the game. That includes the unborn ones and those CARICOM citizens who are not citizens of T&T. Continue reading “CL Financial bailout – the Tangled Web” →

CL Financial bailout – Nitty Gritty

#afteronetimeistwotimes

Artwork by NiCam Graphics

The CL Financial bailout fiasco is headed towards an epic legal mangle as Lawrence Duprey and his cohort aim to regain control of the Caribbean’s largest-ever commercial/financial group. In swift response, the Minister of Finance is making legal moves to put CLF into liquidation.

At the root of this dispute is the actual sum of Public Money spent on this immense bailout and when, or if ever, it is to be repaid. I have been involved in extended litigation to get the details of the bailout from the Ministry of Finance and the High Court ruled in my favour in July 2015, with that result now being contested in the Appeal Court.

One of the details requested by me was the audited accounts of CLF since the bailout started. This presents two serious issues for consideration. Continue reading “CL Financial bailout – Nitty Gritty” →

VIDEO: Morning Brew interview on fight for control of CL Financial

CNC3 LogoThis is my 17 July 2017 ‘Morning Brew’ interview with CNC3’s Hema Ramkissoon on the continuing drama that is the CL Financial bailout. The “chess game” for control is active at this moment, but the propriety of a wholesale return of the group to those chiefs who brought the company to its knees in the first place is still to be debated. Video courtesy of CNC3 Television.

Programme Date: 17 July 2017
Programme Length: 00:26:14

CL Financial bailout – Fit and Proper action

I: #tobepooristhecrime

SIDEBAR: Representation Riddle?

Several media reports of the Carlos John vs Lawrence Duprey lawsuit named one of Duprey’s lawyers as Michael Coppin. According to the ttparliament.org website, E Michael Coppin is a Government Senator, appointed on September 23rd 2015, at the start of the 11th Republican Parliament. Coppin is also Chairman of the PNM’s Heliconia Foundation.

rowley and coppin
Michael Coppin is on Dr Rowley’s left, the smiling, tieless chap in the blue jacket. Photo courtesy Lime.tt

I do not think that any law or rule was broken by Mr. Coppin representing Mr. Duprey in that Court case, but my feeling about that situation is one of deep unease. It seems to me that there is a likely conflict between Mr. Coppin’s sworn duties to represent the public interest as one of our Parliamentarians and his equally serious duty to wholeheartedly represent Duprey in that litigation, given the serious negotiations between the government and Duprey.

Of course we do not pay our Parliamentarians to attend to their public duties on a full-time basis, so they are allowed to continue with their professional lives. That potential for conflict and the real needs of proper governance by our Parliamentarians speaks to the strong case for full-time terms of engagement to be agreed so that no other employment is allowed. This proposal was raised by Dr. Rowley during the 2015 election campaign and it should be pursued in my view.

That opening stanza is my tweet of a witty friend’s remark at Ferdie Ferreira’s booklaunch and 85th Birthday celebrations on Wednesday 14 June 2017. It was not surprising to see Lawrence Duprey and Carlos John sitting together at that event. We may be seeing Duprey more and more, the way this fiasco is unfolding. There were some media reports that John was suing Duprey for some money owed, but the case now appears to have been resolved by agreement. I took little note of that case, except for one aspect, explained in the sidebar.

By now, we know that Duprey intends to regain control of the CL Financial empire which was bailed-out by the State after its failure in January 2009. There have been reports about Duprey’s legal demands that the State remove its Directors from the CL Financial board, with the State having asked for more time to respond. That contest for control of CLF is not the topic of this article, I am concerned here with the apparent failure and/or refusal of the Central Bank to apply its fit and proper regulations to the CL Financial chiefs.

Two criticisms of my position on the fit and proper regulations are that:

  1. nobody has been convicted of, or even charged with, any criminal act, and that
  2. I am placing too much reliance on the words of various politicians.

I actually base the fit and proper case against Duprey and the other CLF chiefs in the CLF letter of 13 January 2009 to the then Minister of Finance, Karen Nunez-Tesheira. That letter, signed by Duprey as CLF’s Executive Chairman, admitted that the group had failed and requested ‘urgent liquidity support’ from the Central Bank, as ‘lender of last resort’. CLF owned and controlled three banks – Barbados National Bank, Clico Investment Bank and Republic Bank – yet was forced into in an illiquid situation. Just imagine that. Continue reading “CL Financial bailout – Fit and Proper action” →