CL Financial and CLICO gets court award from its director

The former executive chairman of CL Financial and CLICO director, Lawrence Duprey has been slapped with a multi-million US court award handed down to him last Friday by the High Court in Trinidad and Tobago.

He was ordered to reimburse more than US$139 million to the companies for facilitating a deal to sell shares in what was then called CLICO Energy to Proman Holdings (Barbados) Ltd in February 2009. The order by Justice Devindra Rampersad comes in light of the multi-million-dollar claim brought against Duprey by CL Financial and CLICO. 

Duprey did not appeal the findings of the judge. The High Court ruled that 17% of the US$139.4-million that Duprey was directed to pay is to be held in trust for Colonial Life Insurance Company (Trinidad), one of the claimants in the matter.

In October 2021, Justice Rampersad found that Duprey acted oppressively, unfairly and with prejudice to the companies by selling the shares. CL Financial and CLICO together owned a majority 51 per cent stake in CLICO Energy, which was sold to Proman Holdings on February 3, 2009, for US$46.5 million. 

In his October 2021 ruling the judge did not immediately make an assessment of the money to be paid by Duprey to the companies but instead invited submissions from attorneys representing the various sides to file submissions on the issue.