Former Colina President James Campbell will have to wait a while longer to see if his former partners, Emanuel Alexiou and Anthony Ferguson, would be sent to Her Majesty’s Prison for failing to obey an earlier court ruling to pay him $9 million “forthwith”.
On Friday, Messrs. Alexiou and Ferguson failed to show up to court at which time Justice Anita Allen was expected to consider an application filed by Mr. Campbell’s attorney, Philip Davis, for the men to be imprisoned.
Mr. Campbell and his attorney are still pursuing the application even though they have confirmed that they have since received the $9 million cheque from the former partners, buying out Mr. Campell’s interest in Colina Financial Group.
Asked on Friday why they continue to pursue the application when the cheque has already been received and cleared, Mr. Davis said Messrs. Alexiou and Ferguson were “clearly already in contempt of court”.
“My client has instructed me to proceed,” he said, adding that Mr. Campbell doesn’t want them to get away with ignoring an earlier court ruling.
The ruling to which he was referring is one made by the Court of Appeal earlier this month for them to pay the money “forthwith” with interest at 10 percent annually with effect from August 31, 2005.
But they had refused to pay the money right away, which led to Mr. Davis’s application seeking imprisonment.
The men later forwarded the cheque after the Court of Appeal refused to grant a stay of that decision, although it granted Messrs. Alexiou and Ferguson permission to appeal to the Privy Council.
If they win their case in the high court, Mr. Campbell would have to return the $9 million. In total, he has received $12.5 million from his former partners after a nasty split last year.
On Friday, Mr. Alexiou’s attorneys informed the court that he was out of town and had not been properly served notice of the court proceedings. Mr. Campell’s attorneys, meanwhile, confirmed that he could not be reached about a change of time regarding the hearing.
It meant that the Colina executives were not in court for the matter. The case is scheduled to resume on Thursday at which time the judge is expected to determine whether Mr. Alexiou was properly served.
The relationship Messrs. Alexiou and Ferguson had with Mr. Campbell hit a roadblock and disintegrated nearly a year ago, not too long after the government approved Colina’s takeover of Imperial Life Financial.
Mr. Campbell was chiefly responsible for the buyout, which came amid much tension and controversy as many of the company’s competitors formed themselves into an alliance asking the government not to approve the deal and warning that it would be detrimental to the insurance industry.
The government did approve the deal, but it would not be long before the Court of Appeal would determine that the underlying acrimony between them had reached “a point of no return.”
It’s not clear how long it would be before the Privy Council determines whether Mr. Campell gets to keep the money.
By: Candia Dames, The Bahama Journal
