Billionaire banker Lee chin sues Yetming for defamation

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad: A billionaire banker and his company have sued a Trinidad legislator for defamation because the politician suggested he may have paid a bribe to a government minister, officials said yesterday.

Michael Lee Chin, chief executive of Canada-based AIC Ltd, filed lawsuits last week in Ontario and Jamaica against Gerald Yetming, an opposition member of Parliament, said Julie Clarke, senior counsel for AIC. She declined comment on why the suits were filed outside of Trinidad, but Trinidadian legislators cannot be sued for what they say during parliamentary sessions. Yetming said in a speech before Parliament earlier this month that the government planned to sell 20 percent of state-owned First Citizens Bank to Lee Chin’s company. He added that a “certain sum of money” had been paid to a government minister and that some people — without specifying who — were speculating that it was a bribe. Lee Chin dismissed the claim, saying he would never pay bribes to anyone. “The clear intent is to put the various statements into people’s minds that (Lee Chin) is a corrupt man and he sought to bribe a minister of government,” Keith King, chief executive of AIC’s operations in Trinidad, said yesterday. “He must withdraw it so that it is clear to the public that (Lee Chin) has done nothing wrong.”

Yetming, a former finance minister and bank executive, did not return phone calls yesterday. But he said in Parliament last week he never said Lee Chin paid a bribe and simply pointed out what he had heard so government officials would investigate. Opposition chairman Wade Mark called the suits “a waste of time” and an “assault on our Parliamentary democracy” since legislators have immunity in Trinidad.  Prime Minister Patrick Manning said there was no truth to Yetming’s claims and there was no need to investigate. AIC purchased a small, privately-owned bank in Trinidad earlier this month and is planning further investment in the Caribbean nation of 1.3 million people, King said. The company would be interested in First Citizens Bank if the government decides to divest it, but it was unclear whether that would happen, he said. AIC is also majority owner of Jamaica-based National Commercial Bank and Lee Chin was born on that island. He was listed by Forbes magazine as the world’s 303rd richest man in 2003, with a net worth of 1.4 billion. Jamaica’s chief diplomat in Trinidad has called on Yetming to retract his statements. Clarke declined to say how much the lawsuits were seeking in damages and would not provide a copy of the suits.