Housing Development Corporation (HDC) managing director Jearlean John yesterday dramatically raised the stakes in her public fight with her new board against its decision to send her on administrative leave by issuing it with a legal letter warning of court action if it does not reverse its decision.
John, through attorney Avery Sinanan, sent the 14 page “pre-action protocol” letter to board chairman Newman George just after 4 pm yesterday.
It calls on the board to immediately rescind the decision and to declare it null and void. The company has 48 hours to respond. A lawsuit is a possibility.
She is challenging the board to provide the date and time when the decision was taken to commission an audit and the reasons for it.
She is also seeking clarification on the manner in which that decision was made by the board and the documented recording of that decision.
John is also asking for George to clarify the date and time the decision was taken to send her on administrative leave and the basis for requesting all her electronic equipment.
The letter also states that there had been no prior decision by the board of directors to conduct an audit but that accounting staff from international accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers were already on the compound by 3 pm on that same day.
John is also seeking financial compensation, saying the manner in which she was sent on leave was in violation of her contract with HDC.
“The contract of employment, dated December 4, 2013, that exists between the claimant and the defendant does not provide the corporation with the power to direct the claimant to proceed on administrative leave and no implication the board arises in favour of in that regard,” John's letter states.
Her legal advice is that asking her to proceed on administrative leave, in the absence of any “properly recorded decision of the board, betrays conduct which is arbitrary, oppressive and fatally flawed.”
John is also disputing the time of the start of the pivotal meeting at which the decision was taken.
She contends that despite a 10 am start time, the board members appeared to be having a “private discussion” and the official board meeting did not begin until 11.01, when the suspended staff were handed letters advising them of the same.
John and the seven other senior managers were sent on administrative leave last Thursday. Since then there has been much speculation about the reasons behind the action, with John stating it must be politically motivated.
George released a short statement on Monday, saying the audit was necessary to facilitate the work of the board.
He denied that the actions taken against John were in any way “punitive.”
In a radio interview yesterday, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley dismissed John’s call for the audit to include the years before she took office in 2009.
He instead praised George, saying he was “lucky” that a man of his knowledge decided to take up the chairmanship at HDC.