CCJ dismisses appeal in Guyanese rice investors case

Jun 27, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) on Friday dismissed an appeal from Guyana in the matter where two companies, Blairmont Rice Investments Inc. and Kayman Sankar Investments Ltd, were engaged in a legal battle over an alleged breach of contract over the purchase of rice lands.
According to documents released by the CCJ, Blairmont Rice Investments Inc. had entered into three contracts in December, 2006 for the purchase and sale of lands in Von Better, Berbice, from Kayman Sankar Investments Ltd, Kayman Sankar and Company Ltd, and Beni Sankar.
At the time, the parties understood that the purchase price was to be used to satisfy Sankar companies’ debt, which they owed to the bank. According to the information from the CCJ, the payment of the purchase price was spread over nine years with twice-yearly installments, which were to be paid in June and December of each year.
However, Blairmont Rice Investments Inc. failed to pay either of its installments for the year 2010 even though Sankar reminded them that payments were due. As a result, by letter dated January 17, 2011, Sankar communicated to Blairmont Rice Investments Inc. that the contracts were terminated and that they would now treat the commercial relationship between the parties as being over.
Blairmont did not accept that the contracts were terminated and took legal action. At the time when legal action began, the purchasing party had been struck off the register of companies.
The High Court decided in favour of Sankar and Blairmont Rice Investments Inc. appealed to the Court of Appeal. That court decided that the payment clause was an “essential” or very important term and a breach (or failure to comply) with it went to the heart of the contract, causing the contract to be terminated. On Friday, the CCJ dismissed the subsequent appeal to that final court filed by Blairmont, affirming the orders of the Guyana Court of Appeal.
In a majority judgment delivered by Justice Andrew Burgess, the CCJ determined that the payment clause was an “innominate” or “intermediate” term (this is a term in a contract that could be breached in either a minor or a significant way).
In coming to this decision, the Court said that the question to be asked was what a reasonable person would have understood the parties to mean by use of the language in the payment clause. Further, considering the language, the CCJ noted that it was clear that there were a variety of consequences that could be caused by the failure to make the payments. The regional court then looked at the consequence of the breach and decided that it was a significant one because it deprived Sankar of the whole benefit of the agreements.
The benefit was that the payments be made in a timely manner to prevent Sankar from losing their properties to the bank. Given the significance of the breach, the Court determined that Sankar could rightly terminate the contracts. As a result, the CCJ upheld the decision of the Appeal Court and ruled in favour of Sankar.
Apart from Justices Saunders, Burgess and Jamadar, the panel also included Justices Jacob Wit and Maureen Rajnauth-Lee. Blairmont Rice Investments Inc. was represented by Attorneys-at-law Jamela Ali, SC, Sanjeev Datadin and Donavan Rangiah, while K.A. Juman-Yassin, SC, and Teni Housty appeared on behalf of the vendors.

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CCJ dismisses appeal in Guyanese rice investors case

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