Canton says he’s still C.E.O. of CPBL

Henry Canton was fired as CEO of CPBL last Friday, but that doesn’t mean that the dust has settled in the industry. The resolution for his termination was passed at an extraordinary meeting of the Citrus Growers Association in the Pomona Valley and followed months of upheaval. A letter was issued to this effect in the afternoon and sent to Canton but he has maintained that he is still the CEO. Confused? Well, Canton says implementation of his termination requires a directive from the Board of Directors and that has not happened. But we are told that he has turned in his vehicle and was in office for a short while this morning. An interim CEO has not been named and the CGA says its subsidiary will be run as if Canton was on holiday. We also know that CGA representatives went to the CPBL offices this morning but did not enter the premises because of security measures in place, which included police presence.  The CPBL is now on a two-week holiday until January third but the accounting department is at work preparing payroll for both growers and workers.  As for the government’s take on the matter, well the employees of the CPBL wrote to the Prime Minister to ask his intervention before Canton’s termination and the court hearing on Thursday.  The Prime Minister was asked last Friday whether there is anything the government can do.  But there was not much comfort he had to offer.

Dean Barrow

dean barrow

“I don’t see how I can. BSI was a completely circumstance, that was a matter of financing which government could help to put in place. This is a commercial dispute, Henry Canton is part of a commercial dispute because the foreign investors, the external investors in CPBL have made it plain that contractually they are bound to keep Henry Canton and that therefore they consider the effort by the CGA – the majority shareholder in CPBL to remove Canton as in breach of the contract between themselves and CPBL and by extension CGA.  I really don’t see how government can solve that particular difficulty. I believe their contract for arbitration. I believe the Banks Holdings people have ask for arbitration. We would be more than happy to sit with all parties and to try to lend some good offices but at the end of the day it has to be clear that we simply do not have any legal basis to impose a solution.  So while I would be more than willing to try to facilitate dialogue between them and while I would invite them to agree to have us try to facilitate some dialogue between them I don’t want to raise expectations because basically either of the two sides can simply say we stand on our commercial rights, government but out.”

So what is next in the valley? We’ll tell you in the coming days.