BVI Trial Resumes Day 1 Wrap-up – The April Fools’ Poisoned Chalice

Lennox Linton Reports – Day 1 Wrap-up

Accountant Kieron Pinard Byrne has made the startling suggestion that his action to abort the Rich Victory transfer of its majority shareholding in the Shangri-La International Holding to government was done on behalf of the Prime Minister and in the public interest of Dominica.

The auditor, mediator and share transfer escrow agent told Tuesday’s hearing before Justice Bannister “I made it clear… that Rich Victory could not have passed a poisoned chalice to the government of Dominica”, meaning a failed, financially strapped company.

He said on this basis, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit agreed that the intended transfer of 69.3 million EC dollars worth of shares for a consideration of 1 US dollar should carry two other conditions in addition to the one originally agreed by letter dated November 18^th, 2005 – written by Pinard-Byrne and signed by Lucy Ma of Rich Victory.

Alongside the written condition that the share transfer would be registered on completion of the high school project (or sooner if mutually agreed), Pinard-Byrne claimed that Skerrit sided with him to add due diligence on 40% shareholder Sino Union and an unqualified audit report for the Annual General Meeting before the transfer of the shares.

Under cross examination from Vanessa Gopaul, a junior in the chambers of Queens Counsel Reginald Armour, an often testy Pinard-Byrne was unable to provide anything but his own personal stories about the additional conditions that no one else appears to have known about or agreed to.

In a decidedly angry tone he claimed that “from April 19, 2006 we were on a fast track to an AGM (in which) all parties would solve the mess that existed and hopefully the transfer could be effected if all the conditions were waived at the AGM…  that is the mission that we were on… It is horrifying to me that this has been misconstrued so many years later”.

But Gopaul closed her one hour and twenty minute grilling by forcing the man of many hats to agree that the first time he recorded in writing the additional conditions that he attached to the share transfer instrument was in his letter to the Prime Minister on April 1^st (All Fools Day) 2008. And he did that after he was engaged to support the bid by Rich Victory to liquidate the Shangri-La behind the back of the government.

The cross examination of Senior Counsel Anthony Astaphan was adjourned after 2 hours and 55 minutes and is expected to continue for another 90 minutes from the start of Day 2.

So far, in continuing the full frontal attack on Pinard-Byrne’s credibility Astaphan has underlined the absence of written correspondence between Pinard-Byrne and either the Prime Minister, Felix Chen, Lucy Ma, David Hsiu or anyone else “accepting, rejecting, or ratifying conditions for the transfer of the shares”.

In one moment of tense confrontation, Astaphan told the key defence witness who at one point seemed to lament the fact the Senior Counsel was no longer his attorney:

“You can get offended if you wish but a lot of your evidence sounds extremely concocted to me”.

Pinard-Byrne replied: “I am offended”.

Astaphan also slammed into the “poisoned chalice” concerns of his former client:

“Who gave you the authority to decide that the conditions on the share transfer were in the interest of government? Isn’t it the government’s choice whether it wants a poisoned or a golden chalice?”

If for nothing else the testimony of Pinard-Byrne so far has been fascinating on account of the window it has opened into the mind of this man perhaps enamoured with the idea of a private little world in which he makes all the rules and breaks them as he pleases

The evidence revealed that at one and the same time he was advisor and scribe to the Prime Minister, David Hsiu and Lucy Ma. He was the man running between Rich Victory, Shangri-La, Sino Union and the Government of Dominica. He determined when confidentiality of client information applied and whether he had any professional responsibility to inform clients about actions he took that impacted their interests.

He saw no conflict with being share escrow agent, auditor and mediator all at once. And where the conflict seemed particularly obvious he explained that the roles had merged. Accordingly, he wrote letters for the different parties; he told them what to do; he used them to serve his interest and later returned to interpret letters and actions differently to the common sense meaning assumed by the signatories.

There is the example of the April 19^th, 2006 letter from the Prime Minister to Shangri-La Chairman Felix Chen in which the Prime Minister exercises the majority shareholder privileges of ratifying the appointment of the auditors and at the same time expanding the scope of the audit to include mediation between parties allegedly in dispute.

Asked if that meant that as the writer of the letter he was in agreement with the Prime Minister’s position that Government is the majority owner of the Shangri-La, Pinard-Byrne strenuously disagreed:

“I drafted this letter for the Prime Minister and so I should know what it meant… I have never had the understanding that the government of Dominica was the majority shareholder”.

But the most surprising disclosure from Pinard-Byrne on the stand today was that Dominica’s former ambassador to Beijing David Hsiu, widely believed to be the mastermind of Rich Victory has no interest in the company. Neither has Pinard-Byrne… which presents the intriguing situation of this major court battle over ownership a Rich Victory subsidiary company taking place without any representation from any shareholders or directors of the parent company.

Hsiu was conspicuously absent from the proceedings on Day 1, but the Rich Victory attorneys have indicated he will be next on the witness stand perhaps as early as the pre-lunch session on Day 2.

Based on Pinard-Byrne’s classification of his bigger boss as someone with no Rich Victory interest, Hsiu testimony through a translator will be particularly interesting.

Tagged as: BVI court Case, Diplomatic Fraud