Nanda Gopaul grilled in second NBS wrongful dismissal suit

Mar 05, 2019 News

---

Director of the New Building Society (NBS), Dr. Nanda Gopaul, was yesterday grilled on the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of former Manager, Kent Vincent.
Vincent had sued the society, claiming over $500M in damages from NBS for the wrongful dismissal. This is the second wrongful dismissal suit brought against the Society.
In the first challenge, former Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Maurice Arjoon, claimed that he and his managers (Vincent among them), were set up and charged at the direction of former President Bharrat Jagdeo, after he (Arjoon) refused to sink almost $2B of NBS money into the construction of the Berbice River Bridge.
The CEO claimed that the lending of NBS money in that manner would have been highly illegal, breaching financial laws.
Arjoon, Vincent and fellow Manager, Kissoon Baldeo, faced charges of conspiracy to defraud the NBS of $69M, back in 2007. The charges were eventually dropped due to lack of evidence. Arjoon has also won a $79M award against the society in the civil suit.
The second challenge against NBS got underway at the High Court before Chief Justice (Ag) Roxane George last week.

Confidential Secretary attached to NBS, Antonia Chichester, was the first witness to take the stand. She said that she could not recall many of the instances, which date back to 2007.
When the matter resumed yesterday, Dr Gopaul was called to the stand. He was identified as a lead witness in the case by Attorney-at-law Devindra Kissoon of London House Chambers. Kissoon is providing legal services to the institution.
In his witness statement, Dr. Gopaul claimed that he had been appointed a Director of NBS in 1999 and acted in that capacity from Chairman of the Board on several occasions.
By virtue of his position, Dr. Gopaul said that he is intimately familiar with all of NBS’ operations, policies and systems, and was so familiar in 2006 and 2007. He explained that, established in 1940, NBS is a lending institution governed by the provisions of the New Building Society Act Cap 36:21.
In addition to providing banking facilities to its members, Gopaul said it primarily provides mortgages and related services to its members.
Given his knowledge of institution, Vincent‘s Attorney, Robin Stoby S.C questioned the witness about the financial systems manual and other procedures as it relates to payments and cheques. In answers to questions by the Attorney, Gopaul accepted that the withdrawals could be made without a passbook.
Further, the witness was asked to provide the court with the prescribed procedure that should follow transactions in the absence of a passbook.
In response to the question, Gopaul claimed that there was a circular outlining the rules that should follow in such a situation.
“And what year did that circular exist? Was it after 2006-2007?” The attorney asked, suggesting that Dr. Gopaul point to evidence, which corroborates his statements. Initially, Gopaul was adamant that the instructions would be mentioned somewhere in rules or a system manual, guiding the process.
He was asked to point it out in the document before the Court, but later backtracked on his statement, “I misunderstood the question. They are not there.”
Stoby then suggested that there were frequent transactions without passbooks. Dr. Gopaul said that he did not believe that was an accurate suggestion.
He instead claimed that NBS provides that that could only be done in exceptional circumstances. However, when asked to provide a scenario of an exceptional circumstance, Dr. Gopaul mentioned the case whereby a customer leaves home without his/her passbook and visits the Society to conduct a business transaction. It was questioned whether that really constituted an exceptional circumstance, but no answer was given.
The witness was asked too about the procedure taken by senior officials, former Chief Executive Officer, Mr Arjoon, Vincent and other managers.
Gopaul admitted that Arjoon had run “a tight ship” and that the board never had reason to write to the CEO on any matters prior to the case.
He claimed that approval of the senior officials in relation to certain documents (particularly the use of Power of Attorney) was “highly irregular.” The witness said too that, in his view, the transaction should not have taken place in this circumstance.
In his witness statement, Gopaul had claimed that Vincent, who was at the time an NBS branch manager, should have taken certain steps to prevent the use of fraudulent powers of attorney.
“In early 2000 through to 2007, NBS formally required all senior officers to ensure that a power of attorney must be personally verified with the deeds registry, as well as contact made with the principal at the address and telephone number on file, to ensure that the principal indeed issued the power. At no time could any other contact information be used, as this would weaken NBS’s security systems. If we were unable to verify the principal using the contact information in file, the transaction would be suspended.”
“NBS required all officers to retain copies of powers of attorney which were used for withdrawals, and to verify in writing that those powers were verified at the registry,” Gopaul said.

---

---