High Court to rule on Ferguson's attempt to halt US$131m payment in Piarco case

A High Court judge will rule on October 15 on an application by businessman Steve Ferguson for an injunction to stop the State from demanding information from him as it seeks to enforce a US$131 million judgment against him in Miami.

After lengthy submissions on October 14, Justice Frank Seepersad said he will give his decision on Tuesday.

Ferguson filed the emergency application for an injunction on September 27.

Ferguson has complained that the State is pursuing “aggressive measures” to enforce the 2023 Miami judgment against him and two others, including demanding the production of documents, information and the taking of depositions.

In May, he filed a similar application, which Justice Nadia Kangaloo dismissed, in a constitutional complaint. She is still presiding over that matter, but Ferguson has asked for her to recuse herself. She is expected to give a ruling and make a statement in that application at the end of October.

In March, Ferguson failed to get the Miami court to block the disclosure of his assets as the State seeks to enforce a multi-million-dollar US Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organisations (RICO)-case judgment. It is seeking to recover US$131 million arising out of the Piarco International Airport expansion project decades ago.

On May 15, 2023, Miami district court judge Reemberto Diaz entered final judgment for Trinidad and Tobago in the racketeering case against Ferguson, former UNC minister Brian Kuei Tung and US businessman Raul Guitierrez Jr for US$131,318,840.47.

The final judgment followed a jury’s verdict in March 2023, which led to TT getting treble the damages it sought under RICO law.

The Miami jury found Ferguson liable for multiple claims arising from the fraud linked to the redevelopment of the airport in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Kuei Tung, a former minister of finance under the Basdeo Panday administration, and Gutierrez, the former principal of Calmaquip Engineering Corporation – which provided specialised equipment at the airport – were previously held liable in the racketeering case.

Ferguson has appealed the Florida court’s judgment.

On Monday, his attorneys Edward Fitzgerald, KC, and Fyard Hosein, SC, argued that Ferguson has been “subjected to the worst kind of persecution in this country.”

Hosein said the State had no jurisdiction to file the civil proceedings in the US courts. He accused the Attorney General of “flouting the Constitution.”

Hosein referred to a ruling by then-High Court judge Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh in 2021 in the extradition proceedings against Ferguson and late businessman Ishwar Galbaransingh not to extradite the two. In that ruling, Boodoosingh ruled that the proper forum for the men to face trial on a multiplicity of charges related to fraud in the Piarco project was TT and not the US. This decision was not appealed by former AG Anand Ramlogan.

Hoever, Hosein said the court had ruled the matter should be heard in TT, but the State “exported” civil RICO proceedings to go after Ferguson.

“And, that is where the abuse lies.”

He described the behaviour as “atrocious.”

Fitzgerald said there was no authority for the State to be litigating against Ferguson in the US.

Lead attorney for the State Douglas Mendes, SC, rubbished the claims, saying Ferguson had already tried to stop the enforcement proceedings in Miami, and the State gave an undertaking not to execute judgment pending the hearing of that constitutional claim.

He also said the Director of Public Prosecutions also gave an undertaking that none of the evidence deposed by Ferguson would be used against him in criminal proceedings locally.

“The information the attorneys receive will not be divulged to anyone. It is going to stay there.

It won’t reach the DPP or me.

"That is how far the State has gone to respect his rights.”

Mendes also said Ferguson should have challenged the State’s move to convert its case in the Miami courts to RICO proceedings in 2004, adding that the move now was decades late.

“You should have challenged it back then.”

Instead, he said, Ferguson waited 20 years to bring the constitutional challenge.

“If they were really concerned they would have brought it in the TT courts a long time ago,” he said as he argued the case was an abuse.

He also submitted that the issue on TT’s standing to bring the proceedings in Miami was also determined by the Florida court and was one of the issues on appeal.

“The State has bent over backwards to accommodate his claims in this court by giving an undertaking not to execute, not enforce, the judgment.”

“The case is weak on merits,” he submitted.

In the latest complaint, Ferguson said the State is demanding information from him, his children and his attorneys.

He says if he declines to submit to a deposition, he is liable to be held in contempt of court and have his appeal of the 2023 judgment rejected.

Ferguson is also represented by Aadam Hosein and Annette Mamcham.

Also representing the State are Simon de la Bastide, SC, and Clay Hackett.