Injunction granted to freeze ex-HCU boss's hardware store

A HIGH COURT judge has granted an interim injunction stopping the operations of a popular hardware store in Arima owned by former president of the Hindu Credit Union (HCU) Harry Harnarine and some of his family.

On Friday night, Justice Robin Mohammed granted the interim injunction freezing the operations of the Authentic Builders General Hardware Ltd, owned by Harnarine, and preventing him or his family from removing any assets, inventory, documents and other records until an audit is done.

The injunction was granted to two businessmen – Elvis Lum Young and Navindra Ramnanan – who are the directors of another hardware store with a similar name – Authentic Builders General Hardware 2021 Ltd –and who are alleging corporate fraud, misappropriation of their property and breach of fiduciary duty.

Named in their lawsuits as defendants are Harnarine, his daughter Krystal Ramjattan and his two sons Hari and Amrit Harnarine. The store, at Mega Foods compound, O’Meara Road, Arima, was also named in Lum Young, Ramnanan and their company’s claim.

The lawsuit accuses Harnarine of inducing the two men to set up a new company with a similar name so that it would “benefit from existing marketing and expertise” and reputation in the hardware business.

They said they incorporated their company and pumped in $2.5 million to begin operations. They said to get things moving quickly, Harnarine induced them to enter all payments with his family’s hardware store, with the understanding that it would be transferred into their store when it was fully incorporated.

Their claim said relying on these representations, they cleared a significant amount of debt for Harnarine’s store and paid for a lease to be entered with Mega Foods Ltd, expecting that when their own outfit was incorporated and set up, it would all be transferred to their company.

The documents filed in the High Court by their attorney, Justin Phelps of Bethany Chambers, instructed by Gary Hannays, further alleged all expenditure was charged to the new hardware store, while all revenue was diverted from it.

The co-mingling of funds, misappropriation of assets and claims that trucks were bought under the name of Harnarine’s hardware storewhile the two businessmen paid the instalments for the vehicles were also alleged and set out in the voluminous lawsuit. It also contended the two businessmen were forced out of the premises earlier in June.

The documents also contended suppliers delivered material to Harnarine’s store.

The two businessmen further allege they were given a number of excuses when they sought an account of the money injected in addition to the hardware store’s daily sales and were threatened with a lawsuit.

On Saturday, police and bailiffs went with the two businessmen to the store at O’Meara Road to take control of it.

The injunction restrains Harnarine and his family from carrying out any of the store’s business, disposing, removing, assigning, transferring, concealing, selling or otherwise dealing with the assets, including vehicles, heavy equipment, stock and inventory of the store's operations without the approval of Lee Young and Ramnanan.

In their claim, they are asking the court to force Harnarine to disclose records of the store's operations, including financial records; sales transactions; inventory levels; warehouse operations; accounts receivable and accounts payable for the new store.

The matter will next come up for hearing on July 14.