Gov't lawyer slams SSL trustee for 'premature' solvency declaration template

A government lawyer has suggested that trustee Caydion Campbell was "imprudent" and "premature" in preparing templates that directors of Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL) used to input information for a declaration that the company was solvent. 

But Campbell, who is a defendant in a lawsuit brought by the Financial Services Commission (FSC), disagreed with the assertions during today's ninth day of the trial in the Supreme Court. 

This morning Campbell said that he prepared the templates on January 13, 2023. He was appointed trustee three days later, a decision which the FSC is contending breached directives it gave SSL on January 12, two days after the company reported a major fraud. 

Facing cross-examination by senior state attorney Lisa White, Campbell said that he used two documents to prepare the templates – an audited financial statement for the 12-month period up to June 2022 and management accounts or financial reports done by SSL's owners for November 2022. 

White quizzed Campbell on whether he was aware that SSL had reported a fraud on January 10 and the large sums of money allegedly stolen from a company linked to Usain Bolt, as well as the audited report which raised questions about SSL's viability. 

Campbell said he was aware of all information. 

White suggested to him that based on what he admitted to being aware of, he was not in a position, on January 13, 2023, to "properly prepare for the directors' execution" a declaration of solvency. 

"I disagree," Campbell said, later noting that it was not his responsibility to assess whether SSL could continue as a "going concern" - an accounting term for a company that can stay afloat for the foreseeable future. 

He said it was up to the directors and SSL's management to put "credible" information into the template. 

"I suggest to you that your preparation of the template for the declaration of solvency was premature," White asserted, which Campbell also rejected. 

Seizing on Campbell's acceptance that fraud is not a "routine occurrence" and presented a peculiar set of circumstances, White suggested that his preparation of the template in that situation was "not in keeping with proper accounting principles". 

"The preparation of the template for the declaration of solvency in the circumstances of the alleged fraud was imprudent," asserted the senior attorney from the Attorney General's Chambers, who is leading the case for the FSC. 

Campbell disagreed with the suggestions, including a later one that he should have awaited the completion of a forensic audit before providing the template to the directors. 

The trial is essentially about who has control of SSL – whether it is the FSC which took temporary management on January 17, 2023, or Campbell, who SSL directors appointed the day before to lead a winding up and reorganisation of the firm.

The FSC claims that the company was wrong to declare solvency, as based on an expert report it obtained, the company's liabilities exceeded its assets.

The expert, Brian Hackett, a Trinidad-based senior partner for international consultants and advisory services firm PwC, claims that SSL directors did not give sufficient consideration to SSL's longstanding financial problems, its declining liquidity position and the allegations of fraud. 

But Campbell has argued that the report was not well done and that the expert was wrong to use financial reports as at January 31, 2023, to pronounce on SSL's status up to January 16. He also said the non-disclosure of a planned US$4 million investment to the expert made Hackett come to "wrong conclusions". 

The trial is continuing before Justice David Batts.

- Jovan Johnson

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