(Trinidad Guardian) Heavily armed police officers from the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) last week raided the offices of financially troubled insurance company Clico and its parent company, CL Financial, looking for evidence to support the criminal case that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is building against former high-ranking executives of the companies. This was confirmed by police and government sources yesterday.
Finance Minister Larry Howai said yesterday that the execution of the search warrants related to “pre-intervention actions and it does not have any impact on the current negotiations,” between the Government and the CL Financial shareholders for the recovery of the $20 billion spent by the State following the collapse of the group, which was once chaired by Lawrence Duprey.
The police officers were granted the search warrants for Clico and CL Financial on Thursday and executed the warrants on Friday. The warrants listed scores of specific documents that the police were searching for and also listed the names of several executives who the police were attempting to question.
The 12 to 15 local police officers who were involved in the search of the CL Financial head office were accompanied by two men who appeared to be foreigners, sources who observed the search of the Maraval Road, Newtown, Port-of-Spain, building on Friday told the Guardian. On Friday afternoon, a Guardian journalist observed two uniformed members of the IATF armed with submachine guns slung across their shoulders, leaning against an unmarked pick-up in the front yard of the CL Financial office.
Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard officially started the criminal investigation into the collapse of the CL Financial empire in early November 2012, according to a statement he issued on November 8, last year. But more than a year before the DPP started the probe, Attorney General Anand Ramlogan on June 7, 2011, directed that all files pertaining to the company should be handed over to Gaspard’s office.
The Attorney General’s directive came days after the Central Bank initiated a civil lawsuit against former top-ranking CL Financial executives and their privately-owned investment companies, alleging that Clico’s assets and income were fraudulently misappropriated to the detriment of the insurance company’s policyholders and mutual fund investors.
The Central Bank’s lawsuit is based on an investigation conducted by forensic accountant Bob Lindquist following the January 2009 collapse of the CL Financial empire. The Lindquist audit is reported to have provided details of at least three suspicious transactions.
There was no response from Gaspard to a detailed text message sent to him at 10.42 am yesterday, but in November last year the DPP warned media houses not to publish “anything which might jeopardise, hinder or otherwise prejudice the investigation or any possible proceedings which might result from it.”
And just weeks after he announced the start of the official police investigation on December 3, 2012, Gaspard attempted to convince the sole commissioner into the collapse of CL Financial, Sir Anthony Colman, to suspend the public hearings of the Commission of Enquiry, as such hearings had the potential to provide prejudicial publicity to the investigation being undertaken by the local police.
Sir Anthony declined the DPP’s request. The DPP is an independent public office, the holder of which has the power to start, continue or stop criminal proceedings before any court, in respect of any offence against the law of Trinidad and Tobago.
In wrapping up the oral hearing stage of the Commission of Enquiry on May 2, Colman said its next stage would be the issue of Salmon letters—a letter sent by the commissioner to individuals or companies identifying areas of potential legal jeopardy and calling on them to respond.
At the same time that the DPP is building a criminal case with regard to the CL Financial collapse—and as Sir Anthony contemplates the issuance of the Salmon letters—the Government is conducting negotiations with the shareholders of CL Financial to ensure that the State recovers the $20 billion already spent to bail out Clico and other CL Financial companies.
Worried about the systemic impact of the collapse of Clico and Clico Investment Bank, the Government intervened to save those companies on January 30, 2009.
Extension of CL shareholders’ agreement
Yesterday, as officials were confirming the raid, Howai announced that he had signed an agreement to further extend the CL Financial Shareholders’ Agreement, which was set to expire today, for a further 60 days. That initial agreement was meant to provide the Government with control over the CL Financial board for three years from June 12, 2009 to June 11, 2012. It had already been extended twice, from June to December 2012 and from December to May.
In a statement, the Ministry of Finance said: “Yesterday, Senator the Honourable Larry Howai, Minister of Finance and the Economy, signed an agreement extending the CL Financial Shareholders’ Agreement, which was set to expire on May 26, for a further 60 days. “Within the 60-day period, the Government and CL Financial will seek to conclude talks aimed at agreeing on, among other things, the means by which sums owed to creditors of the financial entities that formed the CLF Group, including the Government, will be repaid.”
