Alleyne named in wrongful dismissal lawsuit

THE Agricultural Develop-ment Bank (ADB) and its former chairman Hubert Alleyne and board of directors, are being called upon in a High Court lawsuit to explain why they fired the bank’s Finance and Corporate manageress in July after she refused to approve an investment of $4.5 million into Colonial Life Insurance Company (Clico). Feona Lue Ping Wa filed the lawsuit for wrongful dismissal in the San Fernando High Court, claiming victimisation because she stood up to the ADB’s former chairman Alleyne and board of directors against such an investment of the bank’s money. Alleyne resigned from the ADB as its chairman to take up the position of Unit Trust chairman. Two weeks ago, Alleyne was fired as Unit Trust’s chairman, which has now become a subject of a High Court matter, in which he is accusing Prime Minister Patrick Manning of political interference in his dismissal. In her lawsuit, Ping Wa stated that on November 19, 2002, she was orally requested by the bank’s CEO to submit a report to chairman Alleyne on the non-completion of a transaction she was assigned to do. That transaction, the former corporate finance manageress stated, involved the investment of $4.5 million with Clico.

Ping Wa further stated that the report she was asked to submit also involved a legal advice she had sought in relation to the transaction she was asked to conduct. Ping Wa, of Windy Ridge, Goodwood Park, stated in her writ that on November 20 2002, she submitted the report to the chairman. In her report, Ping Wa stated that according to legal opinion she sought, the bank could not carry out such an investment into Clico, because the ADB’s Act did not allow for such an investment into Clico’s Group Advance Protection Contract. On that same day, according to Ping Wa’s writ, the board sent her on annual vacation leave, but without pay. The former finance manageress stated that a full investigation was conducted on the board’s instructions into why she had failed to implement the board’s instructions. In her writ, filed by the law firm Daltons, Ping Wa stated that she remained on no-pay leave until July 2003, when she was informed by the board that she had been suspended with immediate effect. The wrongful dismissal action by Ping Wa will come up for hearing on November 18 before Justice David Myers in the San Fernando High Court.

Ping Wa is being represented by attorneys Lynette Maharaj SC and Shastri Parsad, instructed by Dinesh Rambally. Ping Wa is contending that her failure to carry out the instructions did not amount to an act of negligence which is sufficient in law to lead to her dismissal. She is seeking the judge’s order that her suspension be lifted. Ping Wa is also seeking a declaration from the High Court that the board decision to suspend her because she failed to implement the instructions of the bank’s CEO, given on October 4 2002, that pursuant to a decision of the board, she should have made the necessary arrangements to complete the transaction for the investment of $4.5 million in the Clico Group Advance Protection Contract. She is further seeking the court’s declaration that by seeking a legal opinion of whether she should follow the board’s directives to make the $4.5 million investment, she, according to the board, caused confidential bank information to be distributed which seriously compromised the organisation.