Asset freeze lifted on Howell, Mitchell
Published:Sunday | October 17, 2010 | 12:00 AM
The Supreme Court has lifted an injunction against Jamaican businessmen Delroy Howell, Kenarthur Mitchell and First Financial Caribbean International Group Limited and First Financial Caribbean Holdings Limited, which had initially frozen their assets.
The order was lifted by Justice Brooks in chambers on Friday.
The judge, however, has maintained a hold on two of Howell's other companies, First Financial Caribbean Jamaica Limited and First Financial Caribbean Limited, but has reduced the freezing order from the original US$13.9 million of assets to US$1.7 million.
First Financial Caribbean Trust (FFC) Company, which sought the freeze that was first granted in September, claimed that both Howell and Mitchell had either misappropriated or failed to account for US$13.9 million in assets that were under management.
No clear evidence
The judge held that there was "no clear evidence that either Mr Mitchell or the fifth defendant was in receipt of any trust monies".
In Howell's case, Justice Brooks ruled that while the claimant, FFC Trust, had "shown, for the purposes of a freezing order, that it has a good arguable case against Mr Howell and at least two of the corporate defendants", it had not made a compelling case that the three were likely to dispose of the assets.
"I find that the claimant has produced very little by way of evidence in this regard," the judge said. "At best, they have shown that Mr Howell resides out of the jurisdiction and that the third and fifth defendants plan to hand over the proceeds of sale of their QuikCash business to Ocean Chimo/Ocean Bay. It does not appear to me that this transfer is an attempt to make the defendants judgment-proof."
Attorney-at-law Conrad George, one of the lawyers representing Mitchell, said the US$1.7 million was the figure FFC Jamaica has acknowledged all along that it owed to the claimant.
George also told Sunday Business that Howell had brought proceedings in the Turks and Caicos Islands to regain ownership and retake control of the trust company. The proceedings are to be heard October 27-28.
FFC Trust, in court documents filed in Jamaica, had claimed that Howell and Mitchell breached their fiduciary responsibilities and caused trust funds to be transferred to accounts held by the defendants, or some of them in circumstances contrary to the interest of the claimant.
But Howell, in a related case in the Turks and Caicos Islands, alleges that FFC Trust was stolen from him by Judith Wilchcombe, the company's former vice- president for operations and business development.
Justice Brooks has given the parties leave to appeal his decision.