A court battle has officially begun between the principals of Colina Insurance Company in the Supreme Court.
The embattled president of the company, James Campell, who is being ousted by the majority shareholders has been granted an ex parte injunction by Justice Hugh Small to cancel the extraordinary general meeting of the company which was being called to appoint new directors.
This appears to be another abuse of ex parte injunctions, which have all too often been used by corrupt judges, like the now retired Stanley Moore, who cut deals with crooked lawyers so they can manipulate cases.
The Chairman of Colina Emanuel Alexiou plans to have his attorney, Michael Barnett, move to quash the injunction. A date for the hearing has been set for May 11.
Mr. Campell’s attorney, Philip “Brave” Davis, asked for the injunction after a notice was sent out for the meeting.
Mr. Alexiou wishes to remove Mr. Campell and Ravi Jesubatham as directors forthwith and to replace them with accountant, McGregor Robinson; insurance executive, Ednol Farquharson; and financial analyst, Ken Kerr.
A source in Colina told The Bahama Journal that “we are about the business of integrating the companies (Colina and Imperial Life).”
He said that Mr. Campbell is now trying to buy more time and stall the efforts of the directors.
In the meantime, Colina is technically being managed by Mr. Campbell along with others, but he is not working with the full confidence and support of the majority shareholders and board of directors, the source said.
The fallout between the principals, Messrs Alexiou, Campbell and Ferguson, occurred due to a convergence of ideas over the style and approaches to the management of the company, the Journal has learnt.
Mr. Campbell owns 30 percent of the shares of the holding company, which owns 67 percent of the shares in Colina.
The balance of the shares is owned jointly by Messrs Alexiou and Ferguson. In effect, Mr. Alexiou controls 67 percent of the shares in the company which wishes to dismiss Mr. Campbell as president and director.
There have reportedly been back and forth negotiations to reach a settlement with Mr. Campbell which could be between $10 million to $14 million.
The Colina source said since Mr. Campbell does not control the majority of shares, he is in a losing situation and claims to be fighting as a matter of principle and may opt to settle the matter out of court.
The chance of any reconciliation is being dismissed as it is reported that there is too much bad blood between the partners.
The nasty fallout comes just four months after Colina won the government’s approval to purchase Imperial Life Financial in what was a highly controversial deal.
The dispute began after the approval was given. Thereafter, there was a contention as to who will control the liquidity of the company and the remuneration of Mr. Campbell as president.
Colina reportedly has not yet complied with all of the conditions put in place by the government when the company won approval to purchase Imperial.
The acquisition of Imperial by Colina has been the most significant transaction in the capital market of The Bahamas and the departure of Mr. Campbel from the company could have major implications for the organization as The Bahama Journal indicated in an earlier report.
After the Journal broke the story of the infighting within the Colina group several weeks ago, local regulators said they were investigating to determine the impact the situation is likely to have on Colina’s adherence to the conditions set for the approval.
As part of the approval, the government attached 21 stringent conditions and warned that Colina would face penalties if it failed to adhere to those conditions.
The conditions included a restructuring of the various boards of the Colina group, which consented to the removal of at least one of the three principal owners of the Colina Financial Group from the board of directors of the three entities to be replaced by independent non-executive directors to be approved by the regulators.
The Bahama Journal
