The Urban Development Corporation of T&T (Udecott) has only partially succeeded in its bid to restore aspects of a pending multi-million dollar lawsuit against its former executive chairman Calder Hart and three former senior officers that were previously struck out by a judge.
Delivering a judgment yesterday, Appellate Judges Alice Yorke-Soo Hon, Mira Dean-Armorer, and Malcolm Holdip partially upheld Udecott’s appeal over the judge’s decision and restored a handful of allegations that were struck from the case.
It was not a total victory for the state-owned project management company as the appeal panel ruled that the judge could not be faulted for the majority of allegations he removed from the case.
In May 2012, Udecott filed proceedings against Hart, former director Krishna Bahadoorsingh, its former chief executive Ricardo O’Brien, and official Neelanda Rampaul alleging that they breached their fiduciary duties to it by entering into a series of contracts with a contracting company.
Through the lawsuit, Udecott is seeking a series of declarations against the former officials as well as over $60 million in compensation, which represents advance payments made to the contractor that Udecott was unable to recover.
Udecott successfully applied to amend its case several times.
The officials did not apply to amend their defences in light of the new allegations raised but instead applied for Udecott to disclose key documents which they claimed would assist them in refuting the allegations.
The officials then applied to strike out portions of Udecott’s case over its failure to abide by the judge’s directions on disclosure.
In 2016, the judge held a hearing to determine whether there was compliance with his disclosure directions.
One year later, the judge upheld the officials’ applications to strike out portions of the case.
Udecott was represented by Douglas Mendes, SC, Dharmendra Punwasee, Jerome Rajcoomar, and Darryl Allahar. Hart was represented by Dr Lloyd Barnett, while Stephen Singh represented Bahadoorsingh. O’Brien and Rampaul were represented by Anthony Bullock and Imran Ali.