By Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterOPPOSITION SPOKESMAN on Finance Audley Shaw and his wife Maureen, will have to give up management of the gas station in Christiana, Manchester over which they have taken their business partners, businessman Joseph "Joey" Issa and his company Cool Oasis Ltd. to the Supreme Court.
The Shaws lost their legal battle yesterday to remain in control of the operations of the gas station when Mr. Justice Donald McIntosh turned down their application for an injunction to remain in force until the issues between the parties have been decided in court.
The judge refused leave for the Shaws to appeal his order. He, however, granted them a stay of execution of his order until February 29. The stay means that the Shaws will have to cease operation of the gas station on that day and Issa and his companies can take over the management of Cool Oasis Christiana Ltd. under which the gas station is operated.
INJUNCTION
When the matter came before Mr. Justice McIntosh in chambers yesterday, attorney-at-law Frank Williams who is being instructed by attorney-at-law Harold Brady, opposed the application for an injunction. Mr. Willliams submitted that the Shaws did not put forward sufficient proof to warrant the granting of an injunction.
The judge agreed with Mr. Williams' submissions and said he was not satisfied that the Shaws were not in breach of the agreement between them and Issa.
Attorney-at-law Patrick Bailey told The Gleaner yesterday that the Shaws were not appealing the judge's order. He said the Shaws were contending that based on the agreement they owned 50 per cent of the gas station and that was the issue they were going to pusue in court. The suit stemmed from the Shaw's $13.7 million debt to United Petroleum (Ja) Limited (Unipet), which Issa and Cool Oasis Ltd., had offset last year. Cool Oasis is in the business of franchising service stations and supplying petrol and petrolelum products. As part of the deal, it was agreed that the property housing the gas station, which is owned by the Shaws, would be transferred to Cool Oasis Christiana Limited, a company formed for the purpose.
PROPERTY
On January 26 this year the Shaws said the defendants wrote to them claiming that they bought the property and were taking it over on February 1. The Shaws went to court and got an injunction which ended yesterday.
The defendants are claiming that Shaw's wife had the responsibility of running the gas station and periodic review of her performance showed that there were returned cheques and overdue payments for supply of petroleum products. The defendants said the situation worsened with several cheques being returned by the bank for insufficient funds and late or no payments for petroleum products and telephone calling cards.
The defendants said there were breaches of the agreement because the debt owing as at December 2003 was $7.2 million.
The Shaws claimed that there was substantial performance of the agreement. According to them, when the property on which the gas station was housed was transferred to Cool Oasis Christiana Ltd. on March 16 last year, it was worth $25 million. Shaw's wife said in an affidavit that the agreement included mortgage repayments and payments for petrol supplied and accordingly at all times sales were sufficient to cover the payments. "We have discharged a number of our obligations under the said agreement and accordingly there has been substantial performance of the said agreement, " Mrs. Shaw said in her affidavit.
