The Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­ves­ti­gat­ing the down­fall of the CL Fi­nan­cial group and the Hin­du Cred­it Union will hold its first sit­ting to­mor­row at 9.30 am at the Win­sure Build­ing on Rich­mond Street, POS.

The sole com­mis­sion­er, Eng­lish Queen's Coun­sel, Sir An­tho­ny Col­man, is ex­pect­ed to set the agen­da for the en­quiry, which is ex­pect­ed to hand in its re­port with­in six months. Col­man re­ceived his com­mis­sion to con­duct the en­quiry on No­vem­ber 17, 2010 from Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards.

Among the terms of ref­er­ence of the Com­mis­sion are to en­quire in­to:

1) the cir­cum­stances, fac­tors, caus­es and rea­sons lead­ing to the Jan­u­ary 2009 in­ter­ven­tion by the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go for the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of Cli­co, Cli­co In­vest­ment Bank Lim­it­ed, British Amer­i­can In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny (Trinidad) Lim­it­ed and Caribbean Mon­ey Mar­ket Bro­kers Lim­it­ed (CMMB);

(2) the le­gal and fis­cal bases which in­formed the de­ci­sion of the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go in Jan­u­ary, 2009 to in­ject cap­i­tal or fund­ing in­to Cli­co, Cli­co In­vest­ment Bank Lim­it­ed, British Amer­i­can In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny (Trinidad) Lim­it­ed and Caribbean Mon­ey Mar­ket Bro­kers Lim­it­ed (CMMB); how that in­jec­tion of cap­i­tal was struc­tured; and what poli­cies, pro­ce­dures and process­es were used in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of this cap­i­tal or fund­ing;

(3) the caus­es, rea­sons and cir­cum­stances lead­ing to the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of the fi­nan­cial con­di­tions of CL Fi­nan­cial, Cli­co, Cli­co In­vest­ment Bank Lim­it­ed, British Amer­i­can In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny (Trinidad) Lim­it­ed, Caribbean Mon­ey Mar­ket Bro­kers Lim­it­ed (CMMB) and the Hin­du Cred­it Union which threat­ened the in­ter­est of de­pos­i­tors, in­vestors, pol­i­cy­hold­ers, cred­i­tors and share­hold­ers of the said com­pa­nies;

(4) the ef­fec­tive­ness or suit­abil­i­ty of the ac­count­ing and au­dit­ing firms, the in­sti­tu­tion­al, reg­u­la­to­ry and statu­to­ry bod­ies with over­sight re­spon­si­bil­i­ties (in­clud­ing but not lim­it­ed to the Cen­tral Bank and the Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion) gov­ern­ing the busi­ness and af­fairs of the said com­pa­nies; the weak­ness­es, short­com­ings, fail­ures, de­fi­cien­cies, breach­es and omis­sions (if any) of the ac­count­ing and au­dit­ing firms, the in­sti­tu­tion­al, reg­u­la­to­ry and statu­to­ry bod­ies with over­sight re­spon­si­bil­i­ties (in­clud­ing but not lim­it­ed to the Cen­tral Bank and the SEC) gov­ern­ing the said com­pa­nies in re­spect of their oblig­a­tions to ful­fil or com­ply with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and du­ties im­posed up­on them by best prac­tices and such oth­er in­sti­tu­tion­al, reg­u­la­to­ry and statu­to­ry frame­work; and the ex­tent to which the fail­ure or omis­sion to ful­fil or com­ply with such re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and du­ties con­tributed to or fa­cil­i­tat­ed the cre­ation of cir­cum­stances which threat­ened or com­pro­mised the in­ter­ests of de­pos­i­tors, in­vestors, pol­i­cy­hold­ers, cred­i­tors and share­hold­ers of the said com­pa­nies.