Crawford
THE UNITED Kingdom Privy Council has reserved its decision in the application brought by Donovan Crawford, former head of the Century financial entities, who is seeking special leave to challenge a Court of Appeal ruling that he must pay loans totalling $2.2 billion to the Government-owned Financial Institutions Services Limited (FIS).
Last month, the Court of Appeal rescinded the conditional leave it had granted to Crawford and his companies to apply to the Privy Council, because he had failed to honour a Court of Appeal ruling to pay $7.6 million to FIS's lawyers for their legal fees.
Crawford is seeking to overturn the $2 billion judgment which FIS obtained against him and his companies. His lawyer, Oswald James, made the application yesterday before the Privy Council. Crawford had contended before the Court of Appeal that he did not have the money to pay the legal fees. Crawford's assets are frozen as a result of a Supreme Court order.
An appellant can apply to the Court of Appeal for leave to go to the United Kingdom Privy Council, or go directly, by way of special leave, to the Privy Council.
FIS had applied to the Court of Appeal to bar Crawford and his companies from going to the Privy Council, until the legal fees owing to Myers, Fletcher and Gordon have been paid.
Mr. Justice Henderson Downer heard the application in February last year and granted Crawford 60 days in which to pay the fees, failing which FIS could apply to bar him from getting final leave to go to the Privy Council.
Crawford appealed against Mr. Justice Downer's order, but the Court of Appeal upheld the ruling. Crawford contended that the judge's ruling was a breach of his constitutional rights and, therefore, the judge had no legal authority to make such an order.
In 2001, the Court of Appeal upheld a Supreme Court ruling that Crawford and his companies must pay FIS nearly $2 billion, owing to it as a result of loan transactions from the now defunct Century financial entities.
