Nandlall insists Brassington had no conflict of interest in Hand-in-Hand deal

May 15, 2016 News

…despite incestuous relationship pointed out in audit report
By Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell
Former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, is being accused of remaining blind to what is believed to be clear to

Former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall

other legal and financial minds. “I simply cannot see the conflict. In my mind, no conflict of interest ever existed;” said Nandlall during a recent interview with Kaieteur News about the sale of Hand-in-Hand shares.
Legal and financial minds had publically stated that Winston Brassington, the former Executive Director of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) abused the financial information that he was in possession of, when he purchased for his brother, Jonathan, a $225M stake in Hand-in-Hand Trust Corporation.
In 2002, NICIL headed by the older Brassington, privatized Guyana National Cooperative Bank (GNCB) Trust and kept 250,000 shares in the new company—Hand in Hand Trust Corporation.
Seven years later, in 2009, the Board of Directors at Hand in Hand Trust Corporation expanded the shares in the company from 2.5 million to 7.5 million.
Winston Brassington bought an additional 50,000 shares for NICIL and 2.25 million shares in his brother, Jonathan Brassington’s name.
Khemraj Ramjattan, while in opposition, had labeled this transaction another in a string of incestuous dealings. He said that in 2009 “a Brassington became the second largest shareholder in a Brassington-privatized company…This is not only corruption: it meets the test of fraud.”
Years later, the issue was highlighted in a forensic audit report.
Anand Goolsarran, the chartered accountant who conducted an audit into the operations of NICIL, highlighted allegations about Brassington and his buying of the shares for his younger brother.

Former Director of NICIL Winston Brassington

Goolsarran acknowledged that Jonathan now owns one-third of the shares in Hand-in-Hand Trust.
He said that Brassington had signed a resolution of Hand-in-Hand Trust dated August 24, 2011 on behalf of his brother.
Goolsarran explained the relationship the older Brassington had with Hand-in-Hand before his bother got hold of the huge shares.
While the auditor did not address the possibility of insider trading, Goolsarran highlighted the triangular relationship between Hand-in-Hand, NICIL and the Berbice River Bridge.
He said, “Hand-in-Hand Trust is also a private investor of the Berbice Bridge Co. Inc. (BBCI) of which the Executive Director of NICIL (Winston Brassington) was the Company Secretary. NICIL had also invested $950,000 in shares in BBCI. These were eventually sold to the NIS in order to raise funds.”
Goolsarran said that Winston Brassington explained that he consulted with the then Minister of Finance, Dr Ashni Singh and the Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, and was advised that they saw no conflict of interest.
Contacted about his opinion that there was no conflict of interest, Nandlall said, “This is simple to explain, Hand-in-Hand sold some shares that Jonathan Brassington purchased. Winston acted as a duly constituted Attorney of Jonathon being appointed and authorized to do so by a Power of Attorney. It is as simple as that. I just cannot see how a conflict of interest arises.”

Auditor, Anand Goolsarran

This was Nandlall’s response even as he was asked to comment on the matter against what was found and highlighted in the NICIL audit report.
Ramjattan was the person who first blew the whistle on the questionable transaction involving the Brassingtons.
Ramjattan has said that it was an abuse of insider information as has been aptly demonstrated in what is now being termed the ‘Brassington’s quandary.’
Back then, Ramjattan has promised that the AFC will put forward legislation to curb the practice.
Attorney-at-Law and Chartered Accountant, Christopher Ram, had asked a similar question as Ramjattan which is whether Jonathan Brassington knew of the offer of the shares in Hand in Hand Trust through a public advertisement or by way of his brother Winston, who would have known of the offer as a shareholder representing NICIL.
Ram has suggested that in any other Caribbean country, Brassington would have already been prosecuted.
In a column, Ram pointed to the deficiencies in the Guyana Legislation. Ram said, “More developed markets and economies have been grappling with the phenomenon of insider dealing for decades. These almost invariably deal with the use of information by “insiders” a term generally defined to mean directors and officers but which in some cases include a 10 per cent shareholder as NICIL is in Hand-in-Hand Trust.”
Ram posited, “The rationale here is that of the fiduciary obligation imposed by law on those in a position of trust, an obligation owed in any case to the company and not to any shareholder or member of the public.”
He said that Guyana’s general laws on the use of insider information are not well developed and any progress appears to have ceased with the Securities Industry Act 1998.
“The 1991 Companies Act was an improvement over the Companies Act it replaced, but as far as insider trading goes, it deals with the concept only in respect of narrowly defined transactions and persons…The Financial Institutions Act and the Securities Industry Act are both limited in their scope and only to companies within the ambit of those two Acts.”
The FIA’s provisions deal with conflicts of interest involving directors and officers and the disclosure of customer information, while the SIA defines “insider” to include a person (an outsider) who is informed of a material confidential fact by an insider.
This is not unlike the UK Criminal Justice Act 1993 which creates a distinction between a primary insider (a person who has direct knowledge of inside information) and a secondary insider (a person who learns inside information from an inside source).
Under this definition, “Winston Brassington would clearly be, at the very least, a secondary insider, except that the SIA deals only with a certain kind of company.”

1 thoughts on “Nandlall insists Brassington had no conflict of interest in Hand-in-Hand deal”

Dennis Mckenzie May 15, 2016 at 3:07 pm

It is alleged,that even Nandlall had misappropriated government funds, but repaid it – eventually. What an example to SHOW to OTHERS? The same way it is alleged that the former Finance Minister was advised to Spend $4.5 B without Parliament’s permission.