San­dra Chouthi

Liq­uida­tor Vic­tor Herde won a High Court ac­tion against two di­rec­tors of Good­will Gen­er­al In­sur­ance Co Ltd, now un­der liq­ui­da­tion, when Jus­tice Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar de­ter­mined they were joint­ly and sev­er­al­ly li­able for the sum of $20 mil­lion in re­spect of its out­stand­ing in­sur­ance debts and li­a­bil­i­ties. The judg­ment was de­liv­ered yes­ter­day against Jo­hann Lam­bkin and Lennard Wood­ley. Ac­cord­ing to Ra­jku­mar, "I find that Wood­ley know­ing­ly car­ried on the busi­ness with the in­tent to de­fraud cred­i­tors of Good­will with­in the mean­ing of Sec­tion 447(1)(a) (of the Com­pa­nies Act) by at­tempt­ing to dis­close own­er­ship of a fic­ti­tious prop­er­ty in Good­will's fi­nan­cial state­ments and act ac­counts for the years 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004.

"I find Lam­bkin and Wood­ley know­ing­ly car­ried on the busi­ness of Good­will be­tween Sep­tem­ber 2000 and Sep­tem­ber 2006 with reck­less dis­re­gard of the in­suf­fi­cien­cy of the com­pa­ny's as­sets to sat­is­fy its debts and li­a­bil­i­ties and the com­pa­ny's oblig­a­tion to pay its debts and li­a­bil­i­ties." Ra­jku­mar has al­so or­dered that Lam­bkin and Wood­ley not be a di­rec­tor or be in di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly in­volved in the man­age­ment of a com­pa­ny in­cor­po­rat­ed in T&T with­out the leave of the court for a pe­ri­od of five years from the date of the or­der, Ju­ly 30, 2009. The judge al­so or­dered Lam­bkin and Wood­ley to pay liq­uida­tor Herde's costs of bring­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion "cer­ti­fied fit for two coun­sel." Herde brought the le­gal ac­tion against nine di­rec­tors of Good­will, the oth­er sev­en be­ing: Wilbert Hilton Win­ches­ter, Al­bert Tom Yew, John Lind­say Gillette, Harold Rus­sell, Richard Fields, Patrick Eu­stace Tay­lor and Ri­car­do St Cyr.

Ra­jku­mar de­liv­ered judg­ment against on­ly Lam­bkin and Wood­ley. The court made a dis­tinc­tion be­tween the di­rec­tors be­fore the sale of Good­will to De­mer­ara Life As­sur­ance Com­pa­ny of T&T Ltd in Feb­ru­ary 1992, and those who were di­rec­tors af­ter the sale. For in­stance, Ra­jku­mar stat­ed that there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to es­tab­lish that di­rec­tors St Cyr and Tay­lor car­ried on the busi­ness of Good­will with reck­less dis­re­gard of the in­suf­fi­cien­cy of the com­pa­ny's as­sets to sat­is­fy its debts and li­a­bil­i­ties pur­suant to Sec­tion 447(1)(b) and (c) or with in­tent to de­fraud cred­i­tors. Yes­ter­day, Herde said the liq­ui­da­tion of the com­pa­ny was still in process and giv­en the judg­ment, it's now up to him "to col­lect from these in­di­vid­u­als." He said there was no li­a­bil­i­ty at­tached to the oth­er di­rec­tors. Herde de­ter­mined in court doc­u­ments that Good­will was in­sol­vent since 1996.

Lam­bkin and Wood­ley were di­rec­tors of Good­will from De­cem­ber 29, 1999, un­til the Cen­tral Bank ap­point­ed Re­nee-Lisa Philip as ju­di­cial man­ag­er on Sep­tem­ber 15, 2006. The Cen­tral Bank (CB) in­ter­vened in Good­will on Jan­u­ary 18, 2006. The bank or­dered it not to en­gage in con­tracts of in­sur­ance, both new and re­newals, and not to make changes in con­tracts in all class­es of busi­ness. Philip said that in Jan­u­ary 2007, Good­will and its bro­kers and agents con­tin­ued to is­sue new mo­tor in­sur­ance poli­cies in vi­o­la­tion of the March 7, 2006, Cen­tral Bank di­rec­tive to not write new busi­ness or re­new poli­cies. The bank ap­point­ed char­tered ac­coun­tant Herde as liq­uida­tor of Good­will from Jan­u­ary 15, 2007. In Jan­u­ary 2007, the High Court or­dered the com­pa­ny closed. In May 2007, Herde said mo­torists who sub­mit­ted claims to Good­will would get on­ly 3.45 cents for every dol­lar claimed. Herde de­ter­mined that Good­will's out­stand­ing debts and li­a­bil­i­ties at $23.5 mil­lion. Good­will's as­sets were said to be worth $1,558.520. Herde yes­ter­day said those as­sets were utilised to con­duct the liq­ui­da­tion.