(Trinidad Express) The final day of the fourth evidence hearing of the Commission of Enquiry into the collapse of CL Financial and the Hindu Credit Union descended into “harsh exchanges” between ambassador Mervyn Assam and two members of the inner bar—Queen’s Counsel Bankim Thanki and Martin Daly, SC.
Thanki, lead counsel for the Central Bank, told Assam he was talking “nonsense” during a heated cross-examination yesterday.
Thanki was the first person to cross-examine Assam yesterday.
The exchanges went further downhill when Daly, legal representative for Andre Monteil, former group financial director of CL Financial, asked Assam if he was a “bisexual”.
Questioned after the enquiry, Assam said, “It was unfortunate that Senior Counsel could not advance intelligent questions.”
Assam, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary with responsibility for trade and investment, started his testimony at the enquiry last week Friday.
He was chairman of the CLICO Investment Bank (CIB), a subsidiary of CL Financial, when the insurance empire collapsed.
He had been one of CIB’s founders in 1990.
Thanki and Assam, normally two reserved individuals, engaged in several back-and-forth verbal jabs yesterday.
Assam, in his witness statement and oral evidence, had been critical of the Central Bank’s role in arresting the collapse of CL Financial.
THANKI: The problem is, you said in your witness statement that the auditors’ report you were talking about was dated December 2007. That is wrong, isn’t it, the figures which were analysed were as at December 2007 but the report was dated January 2009 after the on-site inspection, after all the follow-up work, after the relevant off-site work was completed.
ASSAM: I disagree totally. It was an attempt by the inspector of financial institutions to cover up his inefficiencies and the members of his staff for not supplying the copies of the on-site examination immediately after inspection of December 2007.
THANKI: I’m sorry, Mr Assam, but I have to suggest to you that is nonsense.
ASSAM: You are one of the first persons to have ever told me I spoke nonsense.
THANKI: Well there is a first time for everything.
Senior Counsel Russell Martineau, lead counsel for PricewaterhouseCoopers, cross-examined Assam next.
MARTINEAU: Mr Assam, I represent PricewaterhouseCoopers, your friendly auditors.
ASSAM: I am not hostile with anyone.
MARTINEAU: I know you are never hostile.
ASSAM: Not at all, I hope you do not use the word “nonsense” to me.
Stuart Young, the legal representative for Ernst and Young, cross-examined Assam next without any aggression.
The tussles, however, climaxed when Daly cross-examined Assam.
Daly accused Assam of maligning Monteil’s integrity with second-hand information gathered.
DALY: Yes, it is always tell, tell, tell. Everybody here is slandered on the basis of tell, tell, tell.
ASSAM: And you are no different.
DALY: Thank you very much. I was wondering if I should pull the dirt on you but I won’t.
ASSAM: It is all right, I have no cocoa in the sun, so you could pull any dirt you wish. I am Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia, without reproach.
DALY: Are you a bisexual? At what level are the insults going to stop before the commissioner steps in. You tried it with Mr Thanki and you have tried it with me.
ASSAM: I have been very respectful to all the counsel who have been cross-examining me. You are the ones using language that is rather uncivilised.
“Mr Assam, calm down. Mr Daly, are there any more questions that are relevant?” Sir Anthony Colman, lone commissioner to the enquiry, yesterday intervened.
Queen’s Counsel Peter Carter, lead counsel to the enquiry, then re-examined Assam.
After Carter’s cross-examination Assam and Daly buried the hatchet.
ASSAM: Before I finish I want to make it absolutely clear to this commission of enquiry, I did not come here to slander Mr Monteil, Mr (Richard) Trotman (former president of CIB) and Mr (Lennox) Archer (Trotman’s predecessor as CIB president).
I came here on the invitation of the commission to assist it in trying to unravel what took place at CIB. That is the only purpose I am here, not to slander anyone or to contradict anyone, just to tell you exactly how I saw it, how I experienced it and what I met when I got back there, that is all.
DALY: Before Mr Assam is released, for the purposes of the record, we had a number of harsh exchanges but I think I want to make it absolutely clear that I, too, did not set out to cast any aspersions. Whatever I think about the quality of his evidence I did not intend to cast any aspersions on either his public or private conduct so I think I should make that absolutely plain in view of the harsh exchanges we had, it is only right I should do so.
COLMAN: So it was in the context of the forensic cut and thrust?
ASSAM: I have nothing against Mr Daly, he is just merely doing his job.
As Assam left the witness stand he shook Daly’s hand en route to the enquiry’s public gallery.
