A multi-million lawsuit against five former board members of the University of T&T (UTT) over the lease of a guest house in Heights of Aripo is likely to be withdrawn today.
The trial of the case was due to be completed in the Port-of-Spain High Court yesterday.
However, when it was called before Justice Vasheist Kokaram attorneys representing the State-owned educational institution asked for a short adjournment to allow Attorney General Garvin Nicholas to reconsider the State’s position in the case.
After holding discussions with the attorneys in his chambers, Kokaram returned to court and adjourned the case to this morning for the AG to inform the court on whether the State would proceed with the case.
The move comes after UTT’s case, in which it is seeking to recover almost $10.4 million in losses incurred after the lease from the former directors, appeared to crumble last week when the administrator for the property, Arlene Jute, contradicted her former employer’s claims over financial losses. The lawsuit arose out of a forensic audit on UTT which was ordered by former attorney general Anand Ramlogan shortly after the 2010 general election.
UTT initiated the lawsuit in September 2012, claiming the former board had breached its fiduciary duty and failed to exercise due diligence in the sub-leasing of the guest house from Consolidated Services Ltd (CSL) for a five-year renewable lease at a monthly rent of $50,000.
It is contending that the board failed to act on the advice of the university’s legal team which in 2006 discovered the owner of the property could not enter into the deal as the 150 acres of land the property is on was derived from a lease from Government which had expired.
The directors listed in the lawsuit are former UTT president Prof Ken Julien, Dr Rene Monteil, Ravindra Nath-Maharaj, Scott Hilton-Clarke and Errol Pilgrim. Former director Giselle Marfleet was initially listed in the case. However, the lawsuit was withdrawn against her at the start of the trial last week. In their defence the directors have claimed they were not aware of the issue with the land when the deal was signed and they took steps to purchase the property after it was discovered.
As a secondary issue, UTT is suing Julien for allegedly authorising the temporary accommodation of the Rev Juliana Pena, the former spiritual adviser to former prime minister Patrick Manning, at the facility although she was not a guest of the university.
This claim was also contested by the guest house administrator, Jute, who testified last Friday that private customers and UTT staff were charged the same rates for use of the facility.
UTT is being represented by Vincent Nelson, QC, Gerald Ramdeen and Varun Debideen. The directors’ legal team includes Senior Counsel Douglas Mendes and John Jeremie and attorneys Kerwyn Garcia, Stuart Young and Ravi Heffes-Doon.