For­mer share­hold­er of Su­per In­dus­tri­al Ser­vices Ltd (SISL) Kr­ish­na Lal­la, in a sworn af­fi­davit, stat­ed that he was "not in any le­gal wran­gle" with for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) chair­man Jack Warn­er, but Supreme Court doc­u­ments and Privy Coun­cil doc­u­ments have con­tra­dict­ed that state­ment.

That signed and sworn af­fi­davit formed the ba­sis for Lal­la's failed le­gal bid to at­tain an in­junc­tion against the T&T Guardian to stop fur­ther pub­li­ca­tion by this news­pa­per of sto­ries rel­a­tive to the al­lo­ca­tion of awards from the Gov­ern­ment to SISL, the com­pa­ny Lal­la found­ed back in 1979; he re­mained a share­hold­er there un­til he di­vest­ed his fi­nal share to his son six months ago.

But the 2008 Supreme Court doc­u­ments and the more re­cent 2014 Privy Coun­cil doc­u­ment de­tail a le­gal bat­tle be­tween Warn­er and Lal­la over a se­ries of mil­lion-dol­lar in­jec­tions of funds in 2007.In the six-year-old doc­u­ment, Lal­la sought over $70 mil­lion in re­pay­ment for the se­ries of pay­ments made to Warn­er and af­fil­i­ate com­pa­nies.

How­ev­er Lal­la, in his af­fi­davit, dis­tanced him­self from the com­pa­nies that pro­vid­ed the mon­ey, stat­ing that he was on­ly able to "arrange loans" in the first place be­cause of his "rep­u­ta­tion in the con­struc­tion in­dus­try." Lal­la, rep­re­sent­ed then and now by at­tor­ney Ly­dia Men­don­ca, list­ed 18 com­pa­nies that pro­vid­ed mon­ey to Warn­er.

The Sun­day Guardian learned that of the 18 com­pa­nies on the list, sev­en are list­ed as "As­so­ci­at­ed Com­pa­nies" on SISL's web site and an­oth­er four–Beaver In­dus­tri­al Au­to Sup­plies, Elite Se­cu­ri­ty Con­sul­tants, Jani King Ltd and Re­al Time Sys­tems–share the same ad­dress as SISL: 23 Rivulet Road, Brechin Cas­tle, Cou­va. These loans, ac­cord­ing to Lal­la's pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter, were a re­sult of oral re­quests from Warn­er and car­ried no for­mal doc­u­men­ta­tion or agree­ment for re­pay­ment.

Over $25 mil­lion­giv­en in one year

On Thurs­day and Fri­day at the High Court, Lal­la's lawyer Neal Bis­nath con­firmed and read Lal­la's af­fi­davit in high court.In that af­fi­davit, read be­fore Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in on Thurs­day, Lal­la said he was ap­proached by Warn­er in 2007 "for a loan and based on my rep­u­ta­tion in the con­struc­tion in­dus­try, I was able to arrange such loans through a num­ber of com­pa­nies."

"When Warn­er re­fused to pay back these loans, I felt per­son­al­ly re­spon­si­ble and I caused my at­tor­ney-at-law to make a de­mand for pay­ment," Lal­la said in his af­fi­davit.He fur­ther stat­ed that he was un­able to re­cov­er the funds through his lawyer and the var­i­ous com­pa­nies sued Warn­er to re­trieve those loans.

The Sun­day Guardian has re­ceived the 2008 pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter served on Warn­er. In that doc­u­ment, Lal­la ad­mit­ted that he ac­ced­ed to a ver­bal re­quest for mon­ey from Warn­er and, through var­i­ous com­pa­nies, loaned close to $30 mil­lion to Warn­er and his af­fil­i­ate com­pa­nies.

In that doc­u­ment, at­tor­ney Ly­dia Men­don­ca rep­re­sent­ed Lal­la and de­scribed the com­pa­nies in­volved in the loan arrange­ment as her "client's var­i­ous com­pa­nies." The pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter de­scribed Lal­la as a di­rec­tor in the 18 com­pa­nies in­volved in the ex­change of mon­ey.In the pref­ace let­ter, Men­don­ca states that the le­gal ac­tion was tak­en "on be­half of Kr­ish­na Lal­la."

The mat­ter has been be­fore the courts with a de­ci­sion in Warn­er's favour; it was then sent to the Court of Ap­peal which over­turned that de­ci­sion and to the Privy Coun­cil for a judge­ment. On March 3, 2014 the Privy Coun­cil up­held the Court of Ap­peal's de­ci­sion to have the mat­ter re­con­sid­ered in the lo­cal courts.No date has yet been set for that mat­ter.

Pay­ment sum­ma­ry:The sum­ma­ry shows the­fol­low­ing pay­ments:

Sum­ma­ry #1 $5,604,586 Sum­ma­ry #2 8,342,400 Sum­ma­ry #3 $11,266,664 Sum­ma­ry #4 $28,126,485 Sum­ma­ry #5 $17,798,885

To­tal Cost $71,139,000

The doc­u­ment states that Warn­er made a $1 mil­lion re­pay­ment on the to­tal and now owes $70,139,000.The le­gal wran­gle be­tween the two stems from a dis­agree­ment over whether the mon­ey was a loan or po­lit­i­cal cam­paign fund­ing. Warn­er has main­tained that the 2007 in­jec­tion was in fact cam­paign fi­nanc­ing in­to the UNC, was utilised in po­lit­i­cal cam­paigns and was not any per­son­al pay­ment made to him.

Cheques please:

The 2008 doc­u­ment de­tails five pages of cheques paid to the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence car­ry­ing a grand to­tal of $27,126,465; and pay­ment to Ja­mad Ltd–which lists Jack and Mau­reen Warn­er as its di­rec­tors–of $1 mil­lion.There is al­so a list of 28 cash pay­ments to­talling $17,798,885 paid be­tween March 7, 2007 and No­vem­ber 2, 2007.