AG ditches civil suit on CL Financial crash: Billion$ wasted in legal fees

Attorney General John Jeremie makes a strong point during Parliament on January 16. - Ayanna Kinsale

ATTORNEY General John Jeremie said $3 billion to $4 billion had been spend on attorney fees after the crash of CL Financial and associated companies and he vowed to discontinue civil action on the matter. He told this to the House of Representatives on January 16 where he laid the Sir Anthony Colman report into the failure of CL Financial.

Since the crash, much money has been spent on attorneys, but with no tangible result such as prosecutions, the AG bemoaned.

Saying inadequate police officers had been assigned to the matter, he said, "This is a joke of an investigation."

Jeremie mulled, "What do I do? Well, as guardian of the public interest and having consulted with the Honourable Prime Minister, I have to say that we are not able to continue to spend hard resources, government resources.

"And we are not able to authorise and to allow for the spending on professional services to persons who are sometimes golfers but who are always very wealthy, move in various parts of the world. Some of us live next door to the governor general of Barbados."

He said criminal proceedings were fully the remit of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

Further, any interaction with the Central Bank – which supervises financial institutions – was the remit of the finance minister.

Jeremie said, "I can, however, end civil proceedings. And I propose to do so now, in a cost-effective manner, having regard to the fact the State has commenced some of these proceedings and might be required to meet some reasonable cost to exit the proceedings."

Jeremie said the report had never been laid.

Saying it was an unenviable task to lay the report, he said the Clico (CL Financial's leading subsidiary) collapse was due to unconscionable action by his predecessors and had occurred some 17 years ago.

Taunted by the opposition that the collapse had occurred when he was in government, he shot back, "I was there. I know where the bodies are buried!"

Jeremie said the (former) government had spent $28 billion on rescuing the CL Financial group, but further funds afterwards.

"To date, however, somewhere in the vicinity of about $3 billion to $4 billion, over and above that $28 billion, have been spent on matters relating to the collapse of Clico."

The Central Bank relinquished emergency control of Clico in 2022 by which time the insurance firm had paid off a $17.3 billion debt.

Jeremie said two past AGs had irresponsibly engaged attorneys and accountants over the decades, but then stopped paying them in some cases since 2022. "Not me," he quipped.

"I am not referring to a couple of thousand dollars here and there. I am not referring to some hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"I am speaking of close to half a billion dollars." Saying the exact figures will be sent to him, he added that almost $400 million had been paid to Deloitte and Touche, which he had not hired. Jeremie asked aloud how many people had been charged over the CL Financial collapse. Answering himself, he said, "Not one single person."

The AG said that meant half-billion dollars had been spent for nothing to show.

Jeremie said the $3 billion to $4 billion did not even take into account the liquidators' costs.

He said the citizenry had not benefited from that and as he addressed a member opposite he doubted she had benefited as she did not play golf.

He said what was also strange about this situation was that if the PM of other MP suffered a burglary, five police officers would visit and investigate, yet not for this report.

"Do you know what? This report, which chronicles the largest financial fraud in this country, do you know how many people are investigating this matter?

"No more police officers than three, and in some cases one, and on very few occasions none."

"The report that I lay before Parliament today, itself came at a cost of approximately $150 million."

"It has never seen the light of day!" He said no trace of the report could be found in the AG's office, President's office or the office of a bald man from west Trinidad who had once dubbed certain people "dogs".

Jeremie mulled the evidence accompanying the report including tens of millions of emails, plus financial accounting records, forensic analysis proving numerous complex cross-border transactions, 6,414 pieces of electronic evidence and 1,650 hard-copy boxes of which he said, "God alone knows what's in those boxes."

Jeremie said Colman had recommended to call the police. "He goes on to talk about a Ponzi scheme and the like." He then laid the report.