2 applications withdrawn by both sides in Telemedia case
Denys Barrow
While tensions were high in this morning’s session at the Appeals Court, it probably had to do with the fact that only one day remains for the close of the session. There was another Telemedia related matter heard in the afternoon session. The Appeals Court Justices heard two applications; from both sides of the Telemedia nationalization case to cross examine Financial Secretary Joseph Waight, and former Telemedia Chairman, Dean Boyce. It was an unusual atmosphere and instead of the sparring mood that the government’s attorney displayed earlier in the day, Denys Barrow and Godfrey Smith, the Attorney for Dean Boyce spent the entire afternoon agreeing. They both agreed to withdraw their applications to cross examine Waight and Boyce who were both present in the courtroom.
Denys Barrow, Attorney for Government
“There was a great need, as far as we were concerned, to clarify the content of Mr. Boyce’s affidavit—his statement as to what was the state on government’s finances and the statement that government would not be able to pay any damages. So we needed to get very clear what was in fact clarified in Mr. Smith’s statement to the court which is that Mr. Boyce was speaking only on the basis of documents which he put forward from which he sought to give certain interpretations to; from which he sought to draw certain conclusions and from which he drew certain inferences.”
Adele Ramos Trapp, Amandala
“”Some of these documents are official documents are from the Government or from the Ministry of Finance.”
Denys Barrow
“Some of these documents are; one in particular is a document from the financial secretary. So he is quoting the financial secretary’s own authority for certain statements he is seeking to make. The important thing is that none of the documents makes the statement that he has made which is that government’s finances had deteriorated significantly—that is not the fact.”
Adele Ramos Trapp
“Isn’t that though a logical inference from everything that had transpired?”
Denys Barrow.
“No it is an available inference that you can draw. But what I wanted to do was to put to Mr. Boyce all the other factors which goes into the statement which he made and all the other inferences that can be drawn from the statements made in the official documents. So what took place was that Mr. Boyce drew conclusions; the documents did not draw any conclusions. And as you would expect, the conclusions that Mr. Boyce drew are those which suited his purpose. Mr. Smith very properly clarified to the court that Mr. Boyce was not making any statements of that. And once that was established and stated clearly before the court, then I was very happy with it and pleased with the outcome. It is one of the happiest withdrawals I’ve ever done.”
In a related matter, late last month, the Caribbean Court of Justice ordered Telemedia not to pay dividends to shareholders before December fourteenth due to ongoing litigation.
