Derek Achong

Five for­eign used-car deal­er­ships have been or­dered to pay al­most $24 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion to ANSA Bank for their roles in a fraud­u­lent loan con­spir­a­cy.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment yes­ter­day morn­ing, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad grant­ed de­fault judg­ments to the bank against Cey­lon Mar­ket­ing, Joalex Au­to, Mi­va Im­port Ex­port Con­sul­tan­cy, Di­a­mond Con­cep­tions Com­pa­ny, and It’s A Deal.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ruled that the com­pa­nies had failed to present suf­fi­cient de­fences to the co­gent and com­pre­hen­sive case of com­mer­cial fraud and mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion that was pre­sent­ed against them by the bank.

He said, “These al­le­ga­tions re­quired ro­bust and com­pelling re­spons­es so as to con­vince the court that each de­fen­dant had a rea­son­able prospect that the claimant’s claims could be suc­cess­ful­ly de­fend­ed.”

As part of his rul­ing, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad or­dered the com­pa­nies to pay the sums claimed by the bank less the loan pay­ments they had made be­fore the case was filed. The out­come of the bank’s pre­lim­i­nary ap­pli­ca­tion for sum­ma­ry judg­ments means that its case against six of its for­mer em­ploy­ees, one of their wives, and an­oth­er com­pa­ny will now con­tin­ue to tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Seep­er­sad.

In Oc­to­ber last year, the bank filed an over $30 mil­lion law­suit against for­mer em­ploy­ees Randy Gottsleben, Dwayne Ro­jas, Zaria Sankar, Nav­in­ra Ram­bar­ran, Rey­vaan Ram­per­sad, Ker­ry Ram­sa­roop, Gottsleben’s wife Adri­ana Ram­s­ingh, Arnold Ram­jass Au­to Me­chan­i­cal & Paint­ing Garage, and the five oth­er com­pa­nies.

The bank launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion af­ter its di­rec­tor, Lar­ry Howai, re­ceived a let­ter from a whistle­blow­er al­leg­ing mis­con­duct and “dis­re­spect for du­ty.” The ini­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tion found that there were loan trans­ac­tions not in ac­cor­dance with com­pa­ny pol­i­cy.

A wider in­ves­ti­ga­tion was done at the Ch­agua­nas branch of the bank where the dis­crep­an­cies were found and a con­spir­a­cy was un­cov­ered. The bank sus­tained loss­es of al­most $30 mil­lion in two-and-a-half years in­volv­ing 35 ve­hi­cles and prop­er­ties.

In the law­suit, the bank is al­leg­ing that its for­mer em­ploy­ees and the com­pa­nies en­gaged in a con­spir­a­cy to present fraud­u­lent doc­u­ments and make fraud­u­lent rep­re­sen­ta­tions to se­cure loans. It al­leges that its for­mer em­ploy­ees breached the terms of their con­tract and con­duct­ed them­selves in a man­ner that was like­ly to de­stroy or se­ri­ous­ly dam­age the re­la­tion­ship of trust be­tween them­selves and the bank.

Af­ter the case was filed, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad grant­ed the bank an or­der freez­ing the de­fen­dants’ as­sets pend­ing the out­come of the case. The bank was rep­re­sent­ed by Ian Ben­jamin, SC, Mar­celle Fer­di­nand, Bryan Mc­Cutcheon, and Can­dace Lay­ers. The five com­pa­nies were rep­re­sent­ed by Roland Bain.