Final Arguments are Made in Progresso Heights Case

This morning in the courtroom of Justice Courtney Abel, the long-drawn-out case against Foreign Minister Wilfred Elrington, a shareholder with a twenty percent stake in the embattled Progresso Heights Limited, resumed after a six-week adjournment.  Elrington is being sued by the principal director Lawrence Schneider of the real estate development company after cautions were placed on a number of properties in the Progresso Heights community of Corozal District.  The case has been meandering in the high court for almost a decade and Elrington’s argument is that the caveats were sought because Schneider and his son were selling off the properties without proper accounting of the monies made from those transactions.  Schneider is represented by Senior Counsel Eamon Courtenay who spent the better part of this morning’s session presenting final arguments.  Elrington explains.

Wilfred Elrington

Wilfred ’Sedi’ Elrington, Shareholder, Progresso Heights

“It was submission day, in other words, this is the time when the legal arguments are presented and we started off having Mr. Courtenay present.  This is a case where they have brought the action against me because I had launched caveats to prevent Progresso Heights from the company and the people who deal with it, not so much the company but the people who deal with it, from selling off the lands because they were selling off the lands and making millions of dollars and not accounting for it, you know.  So I caused cautions to be lodged to prevent them from being able to do that.  So now they are trying to get the cautions removed and they are taking two points really.  They are saying, well, I did not have the authority to lodge the caution because I didn’t have any unregistrable interest in the lands.  That’s a very technical and legal argument and we are responding to that.  The other argument and the main argument in the case is that we are saying that it is not Progresso Heights that is in front of the courts, it is the same directors who have been dealing with the assets of the company without authority.  There are only three ways in which directors can properly deal with assets of a company because it is not theirs, it’s the company’s.  One, they have to have authority from the articles of association.  Two, they have to have authority from the board of directors or three, they have to have authority from the general meeting.  In the case of both the board of directors and the general meeting, their authority is evidenced by resolutions.  They have to show resolutions in court because a company is separate and apart from its members.  Nobody can do anything on behalf of a company without authority.”