THE MAN WHO WAS expected to be the face of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) for the next general election in its campaign to retain the Government is suddenly being marginalized and shunted aside like some odious pariah.
For example, neither the party nor the Government, of which he was the central figure, and which since 2008 have both been basking in his reflected glory as a “king” – some people even suggested they were making unsubtle attempts to deify him – has said a word about the controversial preliminary findings of the Deloitte forensic audit into the CLICO operations here which has caused such a stir.
Indeed, even the successor to the law firm he founded, Thompson & Associates, has distanced itself from a January 2009 multimillion-dollar transaction involving the beleaguered late Prime Minister David Thompson and CLICO International Life (CIL) insurance company.
In a paid advertisement in the last WEEKEND NATION, the present complement of attorneys sought to clarify their position following a series of articles in the NATION newspapers from February 22, essentially covering a $3.3 million payment to the law firm which the auditors said was really a part payment of gratuity for former CLICO chairman Leroy Parris – Thompson’s close friend, political colleague and legal advisor.
According to them, the present complement was only constituted on May 11, 2010, a few months before Thompson died in October that year.
“We therefore wish to make it clear to the public that the firm of Thompson & Associates which existed during the period prior to May 2010 is not that which exists today,” the statement said.
Pertinent questions
“The financial activities attributed to the firm of Thompson & Associates prior to May 2010 and to which these recent articles refer are therefore not to be ascribed to the operations of Thompson & Associates as the firm currently exists.”
This revelation raises several pertinent questions.
But before that, another revelation further complicates the CLICO affair with respect to the role of the late Prime Minister’s law firm, the original Thompson & Associates.
According to the WEEKEND NATION, “a check with the Registry Department shows that the firm, registered on January 1, 2005, was owned by David Thompson until May 22, 2008, four months after he became Prime Minister. On the same day that Thompson ceased to be owner, associate Onika Stewart also left the company”.
It is important to note that the day on which Thompson ceased to be owner was an exact week after the date of May 15, 2008, which was the day on which the former chairman of CLICO, Parris, was to receive his gratuity of $10 million.
Now, if the original law firm, Thompson & Associates, ceased operations on May 22, 2008, and the current law firm, Thompson & Associates, was constituted on May 11, 2010, the first question is: who constituted Thompson & Associates in the intervening period?
The answer to this question is critical in light of the $3.3 million transaction revealed in the Deloitte forensic audit which showed that an invoice from Thompson & Associates dated December 30, 2008, was sent to CIL for four different legal matters in detail and the fees or retainers for each.
It is understood that invoices are not necessarily signed, but that particular invoice would have had to be on the letterhead of Thompson & Associates for the auditors to be able to identify the law firm.
The WEEKEND NATION revealed that at least two of the attorneys in the current Thompson & Associates had a working relationship with the original law firm.
Is it also not true that Mara Thompson, the widow of the late Prime Minister, was employed at the law firm identified by the auditors in the forensic report?
So the question is: was it the law firm owned by David Thompson – which ceased operations on May 22, 2008 – that sent the invoice dated December 30 to CIL for $3.3 million?
If the answer is no, then what was Thompson & Associates at that time?
As noted previously, the forensic audit revealed that the payment of $3.3 million made to Thompson & Associates by CIL on January 16, 2009, was indeed a partial payment of Parris’ gratuity.
Since the “payment was actually to the benefit of Mr Leroy Parris, the former chairman of CIL and CHBL [CLICO Holdings Barbados Ltd]”, the money had to be signed over to him at some time from the law firm, Thompson & Associates. The question is: who approved and signed the cheque?
The emphatic statement by attorneys of the current Thompson & Associates may suggest that the two attorneys who straddled the intervening period of the law firm, when its status is not clearly defined, might have been in the dark with respect to the troubling transaction.
However, an entity called Thompson & Associates existed and, therefore, in law the partners are jointly and severally liable for the actions of the firm.
The question still remains: who constituted the law firm Thompson & Associates between May 23, 2008 and January 16, 2009?
Given the capacity of the late Prime Minister Thompson to use cheques to attack his political opponents, it is imperative that the cheque which went from Thompson & Associates to Parris as partial payment of his gratuity does not go missing in action prior to the next general election.
There is little doubt that the “kingmaker”, if permitted to be a strategist for the DLP in the upcoming campaign, might have been tempted to fashion a platform to maximize the image and memory of the late Prime Minister in an effort to replicate the success of the recent St John by-election at the national level.
But the revelations from the forensic audit and the deafening silence from both the DLP and the Government must signal that a radical rethink of that strategy would be required.
In the current climate, it is shocking, if not exactly surprising, that the once “poster boy” would now be severely distanced by the Democratic Labour Party.
Prime Minister Freundel Stuart has in the past said that he is not afraid to take the “hard political decisions”.
However, his unexpected political action in embracing Parris as a “friend” at the height of his unpopularity leaves room for students of politics to be proven wrong with respect to Thompson.
Stuart’s strength to date is in going against the grain and so the jury may still be out regarding the legacy of Thompson in the eyes of his political party.
Already attempts are being made to focus the blame of the CLICO (Barbados) debacle on to the parent company in Trinidad, notwithstanding the growing evidence of the role played by the former chairman and his associates.
• Albert Brandford is an independent political correspondent. Email albertbrandford@nationnews.com
