Former British Law Lord for A&V arbitration

LORD HOPE, a former member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England, is one of three former judges who will sit as arbitrators in A&V’s Drilling multi-million dollar claim against now-defunct state-owned Petrotrin.

The other arbitrators are recently retired president of the Caribbean Court of Justice Sir Dennis Byron and retired local judge of the Appeal Court Humphrey Stollmeyer.

Former Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj SC, is representing A&V Drilling whose CEO is Haniff Nazim Baksh.

The arbitration is expected to start in November.

In May 2017, an internal audit on oil supplied to the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery showed fluctuations in crude drilled from the Catshill field and stored in tanks, compared to actual delivery to the refinery. It resulted in Petrotrin terminating the lease and seizing, in January 2018, the Catshill wells in Barrackpore and Moruga.

A&V had sought a High Court injunction against the seizure and was successful but eventually, a judge ruled that pending arbitration, Petrotrin was free to take back the wells as a term of the contract.

Hope of Craighead, 80, is retired deputy president of the Supreme Court of the UK. He is currently an arbitrator at Brick Court chambers, London. Byron retired in May last year but remains chairman of the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute.