The tri­al of the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T Lim­it­ed (SporTT)’s case against its for­mer board mem­bers over a failed $34 mil­lion con­tract re­lat­ed to the con­tro­ver­sial Life Sport pro­gramme is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue Wednesday with the ev­i­dence of an ex­pert wit­ness. 

SporTT’s ex­pert wit­ness is ex­pect­ed to take the wit­ness stand be­fore Jus­tice Ricky Rahim at the Wa­ter­front Ju­di­cial Com­plex in Port-of-Spain on the third day of the tri­al.

Once the cross-ex­am­i­na­tion of the ex­pert is com­plete, the de­fen­dants in the case are ex­pect­ed to be­gin to tes­ti­fy in their de­fence and be cross-ex­am­ined by SporTT’s lawyer, Col­in Kan­ga­loo, SC, on Fri­day. 

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s hear­ing, lawyers for for­mer SporTT chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer John Mol­len­thiel and 13 for­mer board mem­bers com­plet­ed their cross ex­am­i­na­tion of the com­pa­ny’s cor­po­rate sec­re­tary, Ar­lene George. 

Be­tween Tues­day and yes­ter­day, George was re­peat­ed­ly quizzed over the con­tract with eBeam In­ter­act Lim­it­ed to ad­min­is­ter the nu­mer­a­cy and lit­er­a­cy and the in­ter­ac­tive tech­nol­o­gy com­po­nents of the oc­cu­pa­tion­al skills train­ing as­pect of the pro­gramme. 

While be­ing cross-ex­am­ined by at­tor­ney Neil Bis­nath re­ferred to cor­re­spon­dence from the Min­istry of Sport, which he sug­gest­ed di­rect­ed the board to se­lect eBeam based on a sole se­lect ten­der. 

“I do not agree that it was a di­rec­tive,” George said. 

Asked to de­scribe the na­ture of the cor­re­spon­dence, George said, “It was a rec­om­men­da­tion.” 

George was then quizzed by Se­nior Coun­sel Rishi Dass over the steps tak­en by her and oth­er SporTT of­fi­cials to de­ter­mine whether eBeam had per­formed its oblig­a­tions, in­clud­ing procur­ing equip­ment. 

“You can­not say what was pro­vid­ed,” Dass said. 

“I can­not say yes or no,” she ad­mit­ted. 

While be­ing quizzed by Se­nior Coun­sel An­tho­ny Vieira, George ad­mit­ted that the then-gov­ern­ment would have been aware of the con­tract and sought to guar­an­tee it. 

In the law­suit, SporTT is con­tend­ing that the board mem­bers breached their fidu­cia­ry du­ty in en­ter­ing in­to the con­tract. 

Open­ing the case on Tues­day, Kan­ga­loo de­scribed the group’s ac­tions as reck­less and in­com­pe­tent. 

He said, “It can’t be that they act­ed rea­son­ably and hon­est­ly. They act­ed reck­less­ly, bor­der­ing on in­com­pe­tence.” 

He claimed that none of the di­rec­tors saw the con­tract when it was even­tu­al­ly signed in Ju­ly 2013 and eBeam was paid half of the val­ue.

“Re­mark­ably no­body asked ques­tions about the con­tract like the de­liv­er­ables or how they could be ex­posed,” Kan­ga­loo said. 

Kan­ga­loo re­ject­ed the group’s claim that they on­ly paid eBeam the bal­ance on the con­tract af­ter seek­ing le­gal ad­vice in De­cem­ber 2013. 

“They can’t be pro­tect­ed, as if they ex­er­cised prop­er due dili­gence, they would have nev­er en­tered in­to the con­tract in the first place,” Kan­ga­loo said. 

“We say they are neg­li­gent,” he added. 

He al­so con­tend­ed that the group mem­bers could not claim that they were act­ing on the in­struc­tions of the min­istry as they en­tered in­to the con­tract on the com­pa­ny’s be­half.

The de­fen­dants in the case are Mol­len­thiel, Se­bas­t­ian Padding­ton, Chela Lam­see-Ebanks, Reynold Bala, Nor­ris Blanc, Nisa Dass, Anyl Gopeesingh, Sabre­nah Khayyam, Cheemat­tee Mar­tin, Matthew Quam­i­na, An­nan Ram­nanans­ingh, Kent Sam­lal, Harnar­ine Seer­am Singh, and Mil­ton Si­boo. 

On Au­gust 22, High Court Judge Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well re­ject­ed SporTT’s breach of con­tract case against eBeam but or­dered it to pay $30 mil­lion in resti­tu­tion as she ruled that it was un­just­ly en­riched for ser­vices it did not pro­vide.

While SporTT was seek­ing the en­tire val­ue of the con­tract, Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well de­duct­ed $4 mil­lion, which rep­re­sent­ed the nom­i­nal ser­vices in­clu­sive of the pro­cure­ment of equip­ment pro­vid­ed by eBeam. 

“It would be legal­ly un­just for the de­fen­dant to re­tain the ben­e­fit of $34 mil­lion when on­ly the min­i­mum val­ue, un­re­lat­ed to any sub­stan­tial de­liv­ery of the bar­gained-for ser­vices, was re­ceived by the claimant un­der the con­tract,” Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well said. 

“The min­i­mal ser­vices pro­vid­ed by the de­fen­dant did not mean­ing­ful­ly meet the ben­e­fit that was in­tend­ed by the par­ties to be de­liv­ered to the claimant,” she added. 

eBeam still has the op­tion to ap­peal the out­come. 

SporTT has con­tend­ed that the case against eBeam has no bear­ing on the par­al­lel lit­i­ga­tion against the group. 

John Lee and Stephanie Moe are ap­pear­ing along­side Kan­ga­loo for SporTT. 

The group’s lawyers in­clude Fyard Ho­sein, SC, Jagdeo Singh, Shiv Shar­ma, Ka­ri­na Singh, Ke­ston Lewis, Roger Kawals­ingh, Ravi Mungals­ingh, Tara Bhar­ios­ingh, Anil Maraj, Nicole de Ver­teuil-Milne, Adri­an Ra­moutar, Sush­ma Gopeesingh, Kami­ni Per­saud-Maraj, Ly­dia Men­don­ca, Richard Ja­gai, An­drea Bhag­wan­deen, and Dhar­men­dra Pun­wassee.