EDITORIAL - FINSAC commission should revisit Crawford ruling

This newspaper regrets the ruling by FINSAC commissioners Mr Worrick Bogle and Mr Charles Ross - presumably supported by their legal adviser, retired Justice Henderson Downer - against allowing even more latitude to Mr Donovan Crawford, to continue his rant at the hearing.

For, although its approach has recently been more appropriately measured, it has largely been the character of this commission, tasked with probing the mid-1990s collapse of Jamaica's financial sector, to give almost free rein to the debtors who mostly claim unfair treatment by FINSAC, the vehicle that was used by the Jamaican Government to bail out failed banks and insurance companies, or have argued that the crisis was the outcome of bad government policy.

None of this, perforce, predicates the eventual findings of the commissioners, who lost their original chairman to a court ruling, on the grounds of presumed bias. But after much legal wrangling, many delays and several months of on-and-off hearings, the commissioners may be growing weary and looking forward to wrapping up their sessions and preparing their report.

Don Crawford's demand for more time to testify, via satellite from the United States city of Atlanta, seemed set to further drag out the proceedings and, seemingly in the commissioners' view, without bringing new insight to the issues being probed.

Mr Crawford, it is recalled, was the major shareholder, chairman and CEO of the Century Group, which included Century National Bank, among the first of the financial companies to be taken over by the Government in the sector's meltdown. His first round of testimony was, essentially, a monologue of victimhood and of government and ministerial conspiracies against him, personally, and Century, generally.

Holding their ground

When he returned last week, Crawford and his lawyer, Mr Anthony Levy, assumed it was to continue his evidence in-chief, so-called. The commissioners held that the arrangement was that it would be time for him to answer questions. They held their ground.

"In light of the bias, prejudice and discrimination, I have to abide by my attorney's advice not to continue," Mr Crawford said.

This, we believe, is unfortunate, if it, as now seems to be the case, deprives the commission the opportunity of having Mr Crawford's testimony being tested under cross-examination.

Indeed, there are many questions for Mr Crawford to answer about his stewardship at Century, as the Privy Council agreed with the local courts that his fiduciary behaviour was severely wanting.

For example, there are Century's transactions with the Bahamian bank called First Trade International Bank and Trust, into which Century deposited US$25.5 million. First Trade then loaned an equivalent sum to three Crawford-controlled companies, with an arrangement, as the law lords noted, "under which First Trade could set off" against the deposit any part of the debt it could not recover.

Said the Privy Council: "In the event the whole of the onward lending proved irrecoverable and the (Century) bank lost US$25.5 million and a large amount of interest." The Privy Council found it understandable that the then Jamaican chief justice, Mr Lensley Wolfe, would have described the First Trade transactions as "steeped in fraud". There was another $700 million in loans that the Privy Council agreed was negligently made to other Crawford-controlled companies and for which Crawford was held liable.

The commissioners, we suggest, should rescind their decision and give Mr Crawford an opportunity to clear the air.

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