LITTLE progress has been made in bringing the directors and managers of the five financial institutions implicated in the financial meltdown of the mid-90s to face criminal charges.

Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Kent Pantry, has not yet made a final decision on the several files before him, some of which have been with the DPP since 1999.

Recent developments have taken place in the cases involving former director of the Century Financial Group, Don Crawford and former Blaise Financial Group directors, Donald and Janet Panton. Crawford was on February 11 blocked by the Appeal Court from pursuing an appeal to the Privy Council against a $2-billion court judgement. The order was made at the request of Financial Institutions Services Ltd, the entity set up by government to regulate non-banking institutions, and will remain in effect until Crawford pays $7.6 million in costs for the court battles he lost to FIS Limited in 1998 and 2000.

This effectively clears the way for the office of the DPP to proceed with its case against Crawford, who now lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Twelve transactions have been reported by FIS to the DPP after investigations by the police and forensic accountants, for his determination on whether criminal offences were committed. Though the completed files have been with the DPP since April 1999, checks with his office revealed they were still being reviewed by Pantry.

The Century Group was taken over by Finance Minister Omar Davies on July 10, 1996, on the grounds that the group, comprising the Century National Bank, CNB Holdings, CN Building Society and Century National Developments Limited, was insolvent. A total of 43,000 accounts, many of them held by retirees, amounting to $6.3 billion were left in limbo for well over a year before a payment settlement of 65 per cent of their deposits was paid over in November 1997, with the additional 35 per cent paid six months later.

The Pantons on January 21 withdrew the lawsuit that has since 1997 been holding up the state’s case against them for fraud involving millions of dollars in deposits. The lawsuit was essentially a constitutional motion seeking to bar the state from using the testimony of their former longtime lawyer, Raymond Clough, against them. The DPP had planned to ask that the constitutional motion be struck out on the grounds that it was frivolous and vexatious, based in part on the fact that the office had already informed the Pantons’ lawyers that there was no intention of using Clough to prove their case. This decision may have been influenced by Clough’s own legal troubles. Last June, he was charged with fraudulent conversion against Indru Khemlani, managing director of American Jewellery Company, and spent a weekend in the South Camp Road Remand Centre. He is currently on bail of $5 million and that case is being investigated.

The Blaise Group, made up of Blaise Building Society, Blaise Trust Company, Merchant Bank and Building Society and Consolidated Holdings, was shut down by the finance minister in December 1994 against fears that it was insolvent. This amid reports showing a “missing” $300 million from the books and charges of falsification and manipulation of financial records. Over 4,000 depositors, many of them recent returnees to the island from England and Canada, had to wait almost a year for a 90 per cent refund on their accounts over 18 months.

The case brought by FIS charges fraud, falsification of accounts and conspiracy to deceive by the Blaise directors. A mention date of May 15 has been set for this case in the criminal court.

Additionally, the solicitor-general is proceeding with a $2-billion lawsuit against the couple and former director, Edwin Douglas and several other former directors.

Other cases brought by FIS to the DPP for his decision on whether criminal charges should be made involve the Ciboney group, the Eagle group and Workers Bank.

An FIS spokesman told the Sunday Observer there were two major investigations into the Friends Group, an entity of Delroy Lindsay’s Workers Bank, regarding its Corporate Resorts share issue and other suspicious transactions. Both are with the DPP for his ruling. Three case files on the Ciboney group regarding breaches of the Companies Act by a former director are also to be ruled on. One has been in the hands of the DPP since May 1999.

Concerning the Eagle group, which was owned by Paul Chen-Young, this investigation is still with FIS, but was said to be largely finalised, with some police work to be done and additional statements collected.

Civil cases are also pending against the Blaise directors, which is set for trial this month; Chen-Young and two companies he controlled, with a number of pre-trial tussles but no real action; and a civil suit counterpart to the case against Workers Bank in relation to the Corporate Resorts share issue. This case is in the pre-trial stage.

These institutions were among those taken over by the government between 1996 and 1998 and their assets and huge liabilities absorbed in a bail-out and managed by FINSAC. This entity is now being wrapped up, with its bad debt portfolio of US$393 million sold to the Beal Bank of Texas in January.