‘Missing’ court document found
Premier and Minister of Finance Dr the Honourable D. Orlando Smith had told the House of Assembly on April 25, 2013 that court documents in the case against Phillip Holzman International/NORD France El JV vs Autland Heavy Equipment & Construction Limited could not be found at the High Court Registry.
First District Representative and Opposition Member Hon. Andrew A. Fahie had enquired of the documents in light of Autland Heavy Equipment and Construction Limited receiving some $667, 287.53 from Government despite the unresolved court case.
Autland was one of several local contractors hired by German firm Phillip Holzman International to execute expansion works on the Beef Island Airport in 2000 before the hiring company filed for bankruptcy. Autland then took Phillip Holzman to court for alleged unpaid monies.
It was revealed by the Premier previously that 75% of the claims made by the local contractors left unpaid were made by Government through a performance bond made by Phillip Holzman International when it was first hired. He said Autland Heavy Equipment received $667,287.53; Accurate Construction, $119,372.18; Skelton Quarry, $94,356.66; G - Unit Construction, $ 59,686.09; McArthur Engineering, $59,566.96; D&B Trucking, $25,068.16 and Tortola Concrete Products, $23,874.44.
Premier Smith, responding to a question posed by Hon. Fahie regarding the case claim #BVIHCV 2002/2011 between Autland Heavy Equipment and Phillip Holzman International, said he could not find the document.
Hon. Fahie, however, alleged that he had found the document at the registry.
But according to Chief Registrar of the High Court Registry Ms Paula M. Ajarie, the document “referred to is a judgement that has been found since.”
Asked if it was normal that court documents go missing, Ms Ajarie said "it is not normal." The Chief Registrar has since clarified that there may be occasions where documents are not located at the time of searching, "but they are found eventually or there may be the odd case when something is not located but it is not that they never go missing."
Virgin Islands News Online has, however, not been able to get hold of the document as of post time but will be making such an attempt.
.png)
.png)
.png)
Follow Us On
48 Responses to “‘Missing’ court document found”
more li*s by Smith
U never had confidence in the NDP so stop tell lies
Imagine that our Prem... telling li*s on the High Court Registry just to avoid answering questions in the House of Assembly about the NDP's questionable corrupt behavior. This is a shame! This is not a good example for our young people. The Registrar's statement alone tells the Prem.. is ly!n...g..."court documents just don't go missing".
Look trouble...UK come for your islands
All them @$$ needs going jail sm..th u make the whole sm..th family sham with lies
Now that the registrar have spoken, who will the NDP say is lying? Tell the Prem... stop ly1ng because this is not the man we had known for years.
How can you call the Premier a liar? Who did he send to do the search and who confirmed it wasn't found? How do we know it wasn't the registry itself confirming it wasn't found? come on guys stop letting politics get the best of you. Premier needs to confirm who did the search and who said they couldn't find it because this sounds fishy. Since it's found LET US SEE IT!
Captain the ship is sinking, Captain the seas are rough. The gas tank amlost empty and the oil pressure reading low and, there is no electricity, we don't know, we don't know, so Captain you tell us what to do.
The ship is being over pilfered with greed.
Lord! What can we do to restore the integrity of this vessel? We need to do something to make her worthy to go back to sea. We can't afford to abandon this ship so we have to get rid of the NDP but we don't want the VIP either.