The High Court order granted last December “freezing” the assets of Super Industrial Services (SIS) was still in place and there has been no dismissal of the matter brought against SIS by the National Gas Company, Minister Stuart Young (Office of the Prime Minister) stressed yesterday.
NGC had applied for and obtained an injunction granted by the court last year, freezing SIS’ assets in its ongoing contractual dispute with the company over the construction of the Beetham Water Recycling Plant.
At yesterday’s post-Cabinet media briefing, Young stressed there had been no change in that as he denied yesterday’s Express report which stated the assets had been “unfrozen”. He said he was very surprised at the report.
“There has been no lifting of the injunction regarding SIS’ assets and there has been no dismissal of the matter brought by NGC against SIS. In fact, the judge (in this matter) has called for a hearing tomorrow morning.
“My understanding is that SIS has taken a certain position in law which NGC’s attorneys feel are wholly inaccurate. A judge will have to decide. But the matter hasn’t been dismissed or thrown out, it’s a very live matter - and in particular there has been no lifting of the injunction over SIS’ assets,” he said.
Young warned anyone who had to do anything in connection with SIS’ assets to be “very careful. Despite what was reported in the newspapers, the injunction continues to be in place.”
Young said he understood the attorneys may be looking at contempt proceeding, as he understood “Rain Forest, which appears to be a shell company, had certain mortgages over the SIS assets to a certain tune... those may have been released and discharged and may be in breach of the court order.”
In this matter, he said, it had been found that the company called Rain Forest had taken mortgages for “hundreds of millions” without any passage of money, over SIS’ assets and the mortgages have now apparently been released. He claimed that action “may very well be in contempt of the current court order.”
Yesterday the NGC also denied, via a statement, there was any “unfreezing” of the court order.
“Contrary to reports appearing in the media, the freezing order granted by the High Court on December 23, 2015 on the application of the National Gas Company of T&T Ltd over the assets of Super Industrial Services Limited up to the value of TT$180,000,000, remains in effect,” NGC stated.
“The injunction granted by the High Court on December 23, 2015, restraining Rain Forest Resorts Limited from disposing of properties mortgaged to it by SIS also remains in place. Neither the freezing order, the injunction nor the action have been struck out by the High Court. There is no court order to that effect,” it added.
NGC said the matter was still engaging the attention of the High Court but noted SIS was contending by letter from its attorneys that the matter had ended.
“While the injunction remains in force it has come to the attention of NGC that RFRL has released the mortgages over the SIS properties which are the subject of the injunction. The High Court will be asked to grant relief in respect of this breach of the order of the High Court,” it said.
NGC also stated that under the High Court order which continued in force “it is a contempt of court for any person or entity notified of the freezing order and injunction knowingly to assist in or permit a breach of the order of the High Court.”
Conflicting views on case
National Gas Company (NGC) chairman, Gerry Brooks, says it was very unfortunate that a completely erroneous impression about the NGC/SIS court matter was created by attorney Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC.
"Firstly, Maharaj is not privy to the proceedings and secondly, the High Court action is actively before the judge," Brooks said, as he noted it was solely up to the judge to make a pronouncement on the matter.
But Maharaj, in a statement, said although he was not the SIS attorney, he represented several companies which were not owned by SIS or were subsidiaries of SIS and those companies and their workers were affected by the freeze order. As a result, the jobs of approximately 800 workers were in jeopardy, he added.
“I received the documents from the workers of these companies which show the correspondence which passed between SIS’ lawyers, NGC’s lawyers and the Registry of the Court.
“Based on the contents of those letters, I looked at the rules of court and it is clear to me that the claim is struck out. Consequently, the freezing order which was granted in support of the claim was also automatically struck out.
“In law, when a claim is struck out it is a dead claim and all the proceedings in relation to the claim are dead,” Maharaj said.
Maharaj said the situation occurred because NGC had failed to apply for relief. He said under Rule 27.3 (b) of the Civil Proceeding Rules (CPR), the High Court was required to give notice of a case management conference within 14 days of filing of the last defence in cases with two or more defendants.
In this case, he said the court was required to give notice by the March 7, 2016 but did not.
He said if the court failed to give notice within 14 days, the claimant was required to apply for a date for a case management conference but that did not occur and the claim was therefore automatically struck out on March 22.
Maharaj said NGC had three months from the date of the service of the defences, February 22, 2016, to apply for relief from the sanction that the claim had been automatically struck out.
“Three months from February 22 would be May 22 2016. This is the only remedy which the CPR gave to NGC to apply to the court for relief from the sanction of the claim being automatically struck out,” Maharaj added. With reporting by Rhondor Dowlat