Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A law­suit seek­ing more than $100,000 in out­stand­ing rent al­leged­ly owed by a now-de­funct greet­ing card and gift store owned by Ca­roni Cen­tral MP and Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee has been with­drawn.

The claim, filed by Trinci­ty Com­mer­cial Cen­tre Lim­it­ed against Re­mem­ber Me Gifts Lim­it­ed, was dis­con­tin­ued mo­ments be­fore it was sched­uled to go on tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad yes­ter­day morn­ing.

The dis­pute stemmed from a lease agree­ment for a unit at Trinci­ty Mall. The agree­ment was signed by Lee on be­half of the com­pa­ny in 2008 and was sub­se­quent­ly re­newed sev­er­al times.

Un­der the lease, the month­ly rent was pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly in­creased, reach­ing $35,644.62 in 2023.

Ac­cord­ing to court fil­ings, the land­lord ter­mi­nat­ed the agree­ment af­ter the store al­leged­ly failed to pay rent for three con­sec­u­tive months be­tween March and May 2023.

Trinci­ty Com­mer­cial Cen­tre Lim­it­ed had of­fered to off­set the out­stand­ing ar­rears against the store’s se­cu­ri­ty de­posit of $39,568.50. How­ev­er, it pro­ceed­ed with le­gal ac­tion af­ter the re­main­ing bal­ance was not set­tled.

Re­mem­ber Me Gifts Lim­it­ed re­spond­ed with a coun­ter­claim seek­ing more than $400,000 in com­pen­sa­tion. The com­pa­ny al­leged that it had over­paid rent through­out the ten­an­cy, claim­ing it was charged for 1,200 square feet of com­mer­cial space when the unit was ac­tu­al­ly 119 square feet small­er.

Al­though Jus­tice Seep­er­sad was pre­pared to hear the mat­ter, he stood it down to al­low at­tor­neys for both par­ties to con­tin­ue set­tle­ment dis­cus­sions.

When the case was re­called, the judge was in­formed that the par­ties had agreed to dis­con­tin­ue both the claim and coun­ter­claim, with each side bear­ing its own le­gal costs.