Moonilal, contractors closer to trial in EMBD cartel-claim lawsuit

FORMER Housing Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal and several contractors and former Estate Management and Business Development Company Ltd (EMBD) executives are closer to trial in the EMBD’s cartel-claim lawsuit against them.

This as the Privy Council, earlier this month, refused permission to some of the contractors to appeal the refusal of the Court of Appeal not to throw out the multi-million dollar claim against them or provide better particulars of the allegations.

The Privy Council refusal was dated October 8. It said the appellants’ application for permission did not raise an arguable point of law or a point of general public importance.

This means Moonilal and the others have until November 15, file their defences if they have not already done so.

A case management conference will be held on December 9.

Justice Frank Seepersad is presiding over the case and was forced to grant another adjournment of the matter pending the outcome of a ruling in the Privy Council in the multi-million dollar lawsuit against the former minister and the others. Previously, Seepersad had granted an extension to Moonilal to file his defence while agreeing to hold his hand for the others because of the case in the Privy Council.

Moonilal’s defence became due 28 days after the Privy Council ruling.

The contractors had approached the apex court directly, seeking special leave for a hearing there after being refused conditional leave from the local appellate court.

Initially, Moonilal and the others had until March 20 to file their defences. Several others have already filed their defences except for contractors, TN Ramnauth, Mootilal Ramhit and Sons Contracting Ltd, Fides Ltd and Kall Company (Kallco), who, on April 30, appealed a ruling of the Court of Appeal to uphold a judge’s refusal to strike out the case against them.

They argued the Appeal Court misinterpreted and misapplied well-established law governing pleadings, the requirements of a party to plead fraud, dishonesty and bad faith, attribution of knowledge of companies in torts of unlawful means conspiracy, knowing receipt and dishonest assistance and well-established principles of law governing the duty of the court to strike out a claim of unlawful means conspiracy which does not plead all the elements of the cause of action.

In their ruling in January, Justices of Appeal Charmaine Pemberton, Peter Rajkumar and Vasheist Kokaram upheld a 2020 decision of Justice James Aboud to allow the EMBD’s case to proceed. In August 2020, Aboud dismissed preliminary applications by the five contractors to have the EMBD detail allegations against them so they could fairly mount their defence, or strike out the claims.

The substantive lawsuit centres around 12 contracts for the rehabilitation of roads and infrastructure granted to five contractors before the September 2015 general election.

The contractors- TN Ramnauth and Company Ltd; its CEO Taradauth Ramnauth; Kall Co and Mootilal Ramhit and Sons Contracting Ltd had initiated proceedings against the state-owned special purpose company for the almost $200 million balance owed on their respective contracts.

The EMBD countersued the contractors, claiming they conspired with Moonilal, former EMBD CEO Gary Parmassar, ex-divisional manager Madhoo Balroop, and engineer Andrew Walker to corruptly obtain the contracts. Also sued by EMBD are Fides Ltd; Namalco Construction Services Ltd and LCB Contractors Ltd.