SOLICITOR-GENERAL Michael Hylton QC yesterday pointed out that Universal Merchants Limited, the company that is challenging the legality of the state-owned Financial Sector Adjustment Company (Finsac), had no business in Constitutional Court since there were other available legal remedies that the law obliged them to utilise.

“Once there are other means of redress, the (Constitutional Court) is (prohibited) from exercising its jurisdiction, he told Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe who, along with justices FA Smith and Gloria Smith, is hearing Universal’s motion for several declarations that Finsac was illegally incorporated.

Finsac was set up by government in 1997 to take over a number of financial institutions that crumbled due to insolvency. Refin Trust, a subsidiary of Finsac, was also set up to collect debts owed to the institutions which included Century National Bank and the Blaise Financial Group.

Universal is also challenging the legality of Refin.

Yesterday, Oswald James who is presenting Universal’s case, concluded his argument that the certificate of incorporation issued by the Registrar of Companies, one of the four respondents to his client’s motion, was null and void.

The other three respondents are the attorney-general, the accountant-general and the government’s financial secretary, Shirley Tyndall.

One of the primary contentions in the motion stems from a formal demand that Refin made on Universal in March of 1999 regarding a $34-million debt arising from two loans of $14 million and US$252,973 made to it by the National Commercial Bank

The demand, penned by Sharon Evans, the attorney acting for Refin, threatened to dispose of the securities held on the loans and sue for any shortfall if the debt was not repaid within 30 days.

The case continues today.