CL shareholders say no compromise at status hearing

The shareholders’ position was given at a status hearing before appellate court judges, Justices Peter Rajkumar, Charmaine Pemberton and Andre des Vignes who have been asked to deem an appeal filed by the State urgent.

At yesterday’s hearing, Senior Counsel Deborah Peake, who represents the State, which is seeking to have provisional liquidators appointed ahead of Government’s petition to have CLF wound up, said the hearing of the appeal against Justice Kevin Ramcharan’s ruling on Wednesday was urgent as the shareholders’ meeting was carded for Tuesday.

After hearing submissions from Peake and Senior Counsel John Jeremie, who, along with attorney Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj,SC, lead a team of attorneys for two shareholders’ groups, Justice Rajkumar said the State’s application for a urgent hearing as well as its appeal of Justice Ramcharan’s decision to dismiss the application for the appointment of the provisional liquidators, will be heard on Tuesday.

Also listed for hearing before Ramcharan is the Government’s winding up petition.

Ramcharan, on Wednesday, ruled that the move by the State to appoint the provisional liquidators was premature as there was no evidence that shareholders, if they gain control of the CLF Board, would dispose of the company’s assets. “In fact the evidence suggests that they (the shareholders) are intent in repaying their creditors,” Ramcharan said.

The Government’s decision to file the application and the winding up petition was based on the move by the shareholders to regain control of the company and to recoup a $15 billion debt still owed by the conglomerate to the State.

In 2009, the then Patrick Manning administration agreed to a bail out of CLF’s cash-strapped subsidiary CLICO and saw the insurance giant and many of CLF’s subsidiaries going under the control of the Central Bank.

As a condition of the bail-out, CLF’s shareholder’s agreement with the Government, the Government had the power to select four members including the chairman to CLF’s seven-member board.

The agreement was renewed 17 times by the shareholders until they refused to agree to a further extension in February, this year.

The shareholders then made the move to change the composition based on the Government’s refusal to consider a proposal for them to retake control of the company and renegotiate their debt repayment plan made in December last year.

If the shareholders are successful in having their directors appointed to the CLF board, they would control majority interest with five members while the Government would remain with its original four board members.

They have also indicated a willingness to pay back taxpayers.