Fran­cis Joseph

In what can be re­gard­ed as the biggest law­suit against a T&T com­pa­ny, a New York firm has filed a breach of con­tract case against the Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Petrotrin) in the US Fed­er­al Court in Man­hat­tan, New York, seek­ing no less than $12 bil­lion for their loss­es over the col­lapse of a joint ven­ture project.

World GTL In­cor­po­rat­ed and its sub­sidiary, World GTL (St Lu­cia), filed the law­suit in the US Dis­trict, South­ern Dis­trict of New York, on Feb­ru­ary 23.

The case has been put on the dock­et of 77-year-old Judge Lawrence McKen­na, one of the se­nior judges of the court. The ac­tion arose out of the al­leged wrong­ful tak­ing and ex­pro­pri­a­tion of a near­ly-com­plet­ed $3 bil­lion gas-to-liq­uid plant, be­ing con­struct­ed in­side the Petrotrin re­fin­ery, Pointe-a-Pierre. The law­suit was filed by Man­hat­tan law firm, Thomp­son and Knight, whose ad­dress is list­ed as 919 Third Av­enue, New York. Petrotrin has 21 days from the date of ser­vice to re­spond, fail­ing which World GTL would en­ter a de­fault judg­ment, with a de­mand for the com­pen­sa­tion. No one could say with any cer­tain­ty if Petrotrin was served with the US court doc­u­ments. In the law­suit, World GTL and its sub­sidiary are seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion against Petrotrin for al­leged fraud, neg­li­gent mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion, breach of con­tract, un­just en­rich­ment, neg­li­gence and ex­pro­pri­a­tion (take from the own­er for pub­lic use or ben­e­fit).

Ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ments filed in court, in May 2004, World GTL and Petrotrin en­tered in­to a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing to build a gas-to-liq­uid plant and four months lat­er, a project agree­ment for the plant to be built at Pointe-a-Pierre. World GTL (Trinidad) was in charge of the project. The plain­tiffs said at the be­hest of Petrotrin, Cred­it Su­isse, was among the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions ap­proached to pro­vide fund­ing, large­ly be­cause a for­mer T&T Fi­nance Min­is­ter was at Cred­it Su­isse. The fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion agreed to pro­vide a US $125 mil­lion cred­it fa­cil­i­ty and on Jan­u­ary 12, 2007, the plain­tiffs and Petrotrin en­tered cer­tain fi­nan­cial agree­ments. Two months lat­er, all con­struc­tion was sus­pend­ed as a re­sult of sul­fur emis­sions from the Petrotrin re­fin­ery. Ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ments, the plant was emit­ting sul­fur diox­ide and con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the en­tire fa­cil­i­ty. World GTL said de­spite Petrotrin's plans to cor­rect the sit­u­a­tion, there con­tin­ued to be plant evac­u­a­tions and shut­downs. It con­tend­ed that one work­er died and the au­top­sy re­port list­ed the cause of death as, "acute res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­tress syn­drome due to tox­ic fumes in­hala­tion."

But World GTL ex­pe­ri­enced prob­lems with their loan fa­cil­i­ty with Cred­it Su­isse, and Petrotrin moved to ac­quire the loan to ex­pro­pri­ate the gas-to-liq­uid fa­cil­i­ty, the plain­tiffs added. Ac­cord­ing to World GTL, the fa­cil­i­ty was worth $3 bil­lion. They claimed Petrotrin was able to ac­quire the plant by pay­ing off the Cred­it Su­isse loan, which it had joint­ly and sev­er­al­ly guar­an­teed, and mak­ing a $100 mil­lion "make-whole' pay­ment. Ac­cord­ing to the plain­tiffs, "it be­came clear dur­ing these ne­go­ti­a­tions, that Petrotrin want­ed to­tal con­trol, even to the ex­tent of not be­ing will­ing to en­ter in­to a vi­able man­age­ment agree­ment with World GTL, who had been man­ag­ing the con­struc­tion of the project since its in­cep­tion." On Sep­tem­ber 25, 2009, Petrotrin ap­point­ed a re­ceiv­er for WGTL-Trinidad, who took con­trol of the fa­cil­i­ty at Pointe-a-Pierre.

?ABOUT THE PLAIN­TIFFS

?World GTL Trinidad Lim­it­ed, a joint ven­ture be­tween World GTL In­cor­po­rat­ed and the Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Petrotrin), the Gov­ern­ment whol­ly-owned in­te­grat­ed pe­tro­le­um com­pa­ny, is con­struct­ing the first com­mer­cial gas-to-liq­uid fa­cil­i­ty in the Amer­i­c­as. The plant was ex­pect­ed to be ful­ly op­er­a­tional in 2008.

?THE JUDGE

?Lawrence McKen­na, 77, Judge, US Dis­trict Court, South­ern Dis­trict of New York, Man­hat­tan. Nom­i­nat­ed by then Pres­i­dent George W Bush on Jan­u­ary 24, 1990, to a seat va­cat­ed by William C Con­ner. Con­firmed by the Sen­ate on April 27, 1990, and re­ceived com­mis­sion on April 30, 1990. As­sumed se­nior sta­tus on May 24, 2002.