In­dar­jit Seu­raj

Cli­co In­vest­ment Bank (CIB) in­ter­im man­ag­er Carl Hi­ralal, who filed a pe­ti­tion at the High Court to have the cash-strapped CIB wound up, will be cross-ex­am­ined on his de­ci­sion to do so. De­spite ef­forts by at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the CIB to shield Hi­ralal from cross-ex­am­i­na­tion, High Court Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh yes­ter­day ruled that Hi­ralal's ev­i­dence must be ex­am­inable. Boodoos­ingh, sit­ting in a civ­il court at the Hall of Jus­tice, Port-of-Spain, then or­dered that Hi­ralal at­tend court on March 16, to face cross-ex­am­i­na­tion.

Hi­ralal, who is al­so the Di­rec­tor of Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions, was present for al­most every court hear­ing since he filed the pe­ti­tion last April. But yes­ter­day, he did not at­tend court. Boodoos­ingh said he could not agree with at­tor­ney for CIB Neil Bis­nath that the pe­ti­tion should be de­cid­ed on the af­fi­davit Hi­ralal had sworn to.

"This ap­pli­ca­tion can­not suc­ceed on­ly on the mer­it of the af­fi­davit," the judge said. He said the af­fi­davit's "re­li­a­bil­i­ty, cred­i­bil­i­ty and weight" had to be test­ed on cross-ex­am­i­na­tion. On April 15, 2010, Hi­ralal, who was ap­point­ed as in­ter­im CIB man­ag­er by the Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor, filed a pe­ti­tion to have CIB wound up and try and off­set its debts.

He sub­se­quent­ly swore to an af­fi­davit to sup­port the pe­ti­tion. But the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) and Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board (NIB) op­posed the ap­pli­ca­tion. Com­bined, the state en­ti­ties have in­vest­ments to­talling $1.8 bil­lion. They are ob­ject­ing to the pe­ti­tion on the premise that if CIB is wound up, be­cause of the na­ture of their in­vest­ments, they would find them­selves at the bot­tom of the pay­out list and re­cov­er very lit­tle. Yes­ter­day, at­tor­ney for CIB, Deb­o­rah Peake, de­scribed as "ab­surd", the move by CIB lawyers to block the ex­am­i­na­tion of Hi­ralal's ev­i­dence. She said the ev­i­den­tial bur­den on the pe­ti­tion­er would not be dis­charged by the af­fi­davit alone, but al­so by cross-ex­am­i­na­tion.

Dr Claude Den­bow, who leads Dhar­men­dra Pun­wasie and Don­na Den­bow for NGC, said any such move to re­strict cross-ex­am­i­na­tion "was a per­ver­sion of jus­tice." This, he said, should not be en­ter­tained by the court. Ac­cord­ing to the wind­ing up rules, Hi­ralal must prove-on a bal­ance of prob­a­bil­i­ties-that CIB was un­able to pay its debts and it is just, fair and eq­ui­table to wind up the com­pa­ny. To sup­port this pe­ti­tion, CIB filed af­fi­davits sworn by Hi­ralal, Maria Daniel, di­rec­tor at Ernst and Young, and Wendy Ho Sing, for­mer deputy In­spec­tor of Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions. Den­bow (Claude) said he want­ed to cross-ex­am­ine Hi­ralal on mat­ters he con­sid­ered in de­cid­ing to wind up. He said he al­so in­tend­ed to ques­tion Daniel, on her com­pe­tence to de­ter­mine in­sol­ven­cy mat­ters.