Nidco chairman satisfied with High Court ruling

NATIONAL Infrastructure Development Company (Nidco) chairman Herbert George and the company's legal team breathed a sign of relief on Wednesday after a High Court judge ruled against OAS SA, the Brazilian firm contracted to build the highway extension from Golconda to Point Fortin.

"(I feel) happiness, relief and that of satisfaction for (Nidco's) lawyers," George told Newsday in a brief interview.

"We thought we had a case to argue and we carried it through, and today we got word that the judge had set aside the judgement of the tribunal. So we are relieved to have that kind of a judgement."

Nidco contracted OAS to build the 43.5 kilometre highway for $5.3 billion in 2011, under the People's Partnership administration. The contract, however, was terminated in 2016.

On April 16, a tribunal ruled that Nidco must pay OAS $857 million.

Nidco, however, challenged the arbitration award on the grounds that the contract was rightfully terminated, and asked the court to return the partial final award to the tribunal for reconsideration.

On Wednesday, High Court judge Justice Frank Seepersad set aside an over-$850 million arbitration originally awarded to OAS.

The Prime Minister also addressed the ruling on a Facebook post on Wednesday. "The result of this removal of the bankruptcy clause in the contract is that the contractor was allowed to leave with almost $1 billion of taxpayers’ money.

"Had there not been a change of government this secret gift to a foreign contractor would have gone unnoticed by the people of Trinidad and Tobago."

To protect taxpayers, Dr Rowley said, there was a clause in the original contract that required that in the event of bankruptcy, on the part of the contractor, the insurance bonds securing the contract, belong to Nidco.

OAS eventually went bankrupt amidst allegations of corruption and mismanagement.

"(Taxpayers) must take note that on the last working day before the General Elections of 2015, the then government secretly and mysteriously removed the relevant clause which protected the taxpayers’ interest in this billion-dollar project."

George addressed the clause, saying, "Those are matters of law that our team thought should be (pursued).

"They pursued it and we got the results (we wanted). The tribunal had made their award and had they ruled that addendum-two clauses would bring relief to OAS. We did not feel so."

The clause stipulated that bonds would go to the State if the contractor was insolvent or went bankrupt.

"The judge had agreed with our submission. That addendum-two was used by the tribunal as part of their justification for their award which was summarily thrown out today."

The case, though, is unlikely to have finished.

"They can appeal or whatever. That is not for me to determine. If they (choose to), we will be there to contest it," George said.