THE GOVERNMENT was yesterday granted leave to go to the Judicial Review Court to apply for orders to quash the record $12 billion arbitration award in damages to the Ezroy Millwood-led National Transport Co-operative Society (NTCS) for breaching a bus franchise agreement.
Mr. Justice Horace Marsh, after hearing legal arguments from Solicitor-General Michael Hylton, Q.C., and attorney-at-law Steve Shelton, granted leave and also a stay of the arbitration award. The Judicial Review Court is to sit on June 8 to hear the application.
The Government was sued by Millwood after it took over the public transportation system in the Kingston Metropolitan Transport Region (KMTR), with nearly five years still left on a 10-year agreement it had entered into with three independent franchise holders.
The parties subsequently agreed to arbitration. On October 2 this year, the arbitrators ruled that NTCS should be paid $4 billion for the years 1995 to 2001 with interest to be calculated from the end of each accounting year at the Treasury Bill and commercial bank rates.
The NTCS was responsible for providing public transportation up to March 2005, but this ended in 2001.
