Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A High Court judge has frozen the as­sets of an at­tor­ney as part of a bid by a com­pa­ny to re­cov­er $7 mil­lion in funds paid to a con­trac­tor for a con­struc­tion project that al­leged­ly did not ma­te­ri­alise.

De­liv­er­ing a de­ci­sion late yes­ter­day, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad up­held an ex-parte ap­pli­ca­tion from Ad­vance Hose and Mar­ket­ing Lim­it­ed, of Ridge­wood Heights, Tacarigua, to freeze an ac­count held by at­tor­ney Varun De­bideen.

In the court fil­ings ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the com­pa­ny’s lawyer Ka­ri­na Singh claimed that on Ju­ly 19, 2023, her client trans­ferred the mon­ey to con­trac­tor Cordell Philbert, of Roy­al Palm Gar­dens, Mal­abar, Ari­ma, as pay­ment for a prospec­tive con­struc­tion project it (the com­pa­ny) was pur­su­ing.

“The First Re­spon­dent (Philbert) has, through fraud­u­lent means, mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed and/or con­vert­ed the sum of $7 mil­lion to his own use and ben­e­fit,” Singh said.

“The trans­ferred sums were fraud­u­lent­ly ob­tained by the First De­fen­dant through neg­li­gent and/or fraud­u­lent mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion aris­ing out of the prospec­tive con­struc­tion project, in which the First Re­spon­dent un­der­took to pro­vide ser­vices in con­sid­er­a­tion for the pay­ment of the sum of $7 mil­lion,” she added.

On Tues­day, the com­pa­ny’s lawyers ob­tained a Nor­wich Phar­ma­cal or­der from a High Court judge in re­la­tion to the RBC Roy­al Bank (T&T) Lim­it­ed ac­count held by Philbert that the com­pa­ny trans­ferred the funds to.

Such or­ders seek to com­pel third par­ties such as fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions to re­veal con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion of their clients, which can then be used to pur­sue lit­i­ga­tion over al­leged wrong­do­ing.

Singh claimed that Philbert’s fi­nan­cial records showed that af­ter re­ceiv­ing the funds, $6 mil­lion was trans­ferred to De­bideen’s ac­count held with Sco­tia­bank. She fur­ther claimed that $624,650 was trans­ferred to ZA Lim­i­ty En­gi­neer­ing Con­sul­tan­cy, a com­pa­ny owned by Joash Ram­jat­tan.

The court pro­ceed­ings al­so list­ed Ram­jat­tan, his com­pa­ny, Mi­toon­lal Per­sad and his son Brad as de­fen­dants.

Singh claimed that Ram­jat­tan and the Per­sads were busi­ness as­so­ciates of Philbert and act­ed as his agents.

“The First (Philbert), Third (Brad), Fourth (Ram­jat­tan), Fifth (Per­sad), Sixth (De­bideen) and Sev­enth (ZA Lim­i­ty) Re­spon­dents have col­lud­ed with the in­ten­tion of de­fraud­ing the Ap­pli­cant and/or in­tend to and/or have mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed the trans­ferred sum and/or placed the trans­ferred sum be­yond the reach of the Ap­pli­cant,” Singh said.

“The Sixth (De­bideen) and Sev­enth (ZA Lim­i­ty) are li­able in know­ing re­ceipt and/or dis­hon­est as­sis­tance hav­ing re­ceived the mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed funds and the Claimant is en­ti­tled to trace and/or fol­low the as­sets in­to the hands of the Sixth and Sev­enth Re­spon­dents,” she added.

Un­der Jus­tice Seep­er­sad’s or­der, De­bideen was barred from dis­pos­ing of $6 mil­lion of his as­sets in the ac­count the mon­ey was trans­ferred to by Philbert and his oth­er bank ac­counts.

De­bideen was al­so giv­en three days in which to dis­close records of all his lo­cal as­sets ex­ceed­ing $1 mil­lion.

“If the pro­vi­sion of any of this in­for­ma­tion is like­ly to in­crim­i­nate the Sixth Re­spon­dent (De­bideen), he may be en­ti­tled to refuse to pro­vide it, but is rec­om­mend­ed to take le­gal ad­vice be­fore re­fus­ing to pro­vide the in­for­ma­tion,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

“Wrong­ful re­fusal to pro­vide the in­for­ma­tion may amount to a con­tempt of court and may ren­der the Sixth Re­spon­dent li­able to be im­pris­oned, fined or have his as­sets seized,” he added.

The or­der, which will re­main in place un­til the de­fen­dants ap­pear be­fore Jus­tice Seep­er­sad next Wednes­day, does not stop De­bideen from spend­ing $10,000 of his funds on liv­ing ex­pens­es.

De­bideen was al­so giv­en the op­tion to au­to­mat­i­cal­ly lift the freeze or­der by pay­ing $6 mil­lion to the court to be held pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the lit­i­ga­tion.

De­bideen can al­so ap­ply to Jus­tice Seep­er­sad to vary or dis­charge the or­der be­fore the case comes up for hear­ing next week.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that breach­ing the or­der or know­ing­ly as­sist­ing some­one in breach­ing it would con­sti­tute con­tempt of court.

“Any per­son do­ing so may be im­pris­oned, fined or have their as­sets seized,” the or­der said.

The com­pa­ny was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Jagdeo Singh and Leon Kailcha­ran.

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, De­bideen de­nied any wrong­do­ing. He claimed that he nev­er had any di­rect deal­ings with the com­pa­ny or Philbert.

“I had ab­solute­ly noth­ing to do with them,” he said.

He claimed that he had been pre­vi­ous­ly re­tained by Ram­jat­tan to rep­re­sent him in sep­a­rate le­gal pro­ceed­ings and that the mon­ey paid to him by Philbert rep­re­sent­ed a loan that he (Philbert) al­leged­ly gave to Ram­jat­tan to pay his (Ram­jat­tan) mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar judg­ment debt.

“I was fol­low­ing the in­struc­tions of my client un­der the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act,” he said.

De­bideen not­ed that he in­tends to chal­lenge the freez­ing or­der.