ChinBarbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
THE COURT of Appeal will continue to hear legal arguments next week in the appeal brought by Kingston businessman Lascelles Chin who is challenging a Supreme Court ruling that his former wife, Audrey Ramona Chin, is entitled to half of the 250,000 shares in the multimillion-dollar distribution company, Lasco Foods Ltd.
In 1993, Mrs. Chin, senior vice-president of marketing and client relations at NCB Capital Markets Ltd., brought a suit under the Married Women's Property Act, contending that she was entitled to half of the shares in the company.
Mr. Chin claimed that she was entitled to only one share in the company which began operating in 1986.
Justice Seymour Panton heard the suit and ruled that Mrs. Chin was entitled to only one share.
Mrs. Chin took the matter to the Court of Appeal, which ruled that she was entitled to half of the shares.
Mr. Chin appealed to the United Kingdom Privy Council, Jamaica's final appellate court, which sent back the case to the Supreme Court for the parties to be cross-examined. When Justice Panton heard the suit in the Supreme Court he had asked the parties to give oral evidence but they declined and relied on the documentary evidence.
The parties gave evidence under cross-examination in the Supreme Court last year and Mr. Justice Neville Clarke (now deceased) heard the evidence and ruled in favour of Mrs. Chin on December 6, 2002.
Mr. Chin has filed 15 grounds of appeal in which he is contending that the judge erred in his ruling because he based his decision on what he considered discrepancies in Mr. Chin's oral evidence and ignored the contemporaneous documentary and affidavit evidence which supported his case. Mr. Chin claims further that the judge erred in his assessment of Mrs. Chin's evidence on critical and important issues in that he placed no reliance on the fact that she was at all material times a chartered accountant who completed a masters programme in accounting and was familiar with how company accounts were structured. He is asking the court to find that the judge's conclusion that Mrs. Chin received much less than her work was worth was not supported by the evidence.
Mr. R. N. A Henriques, Q.C., began making submissions last week on behalf of Mr. Chin and will continue when the hearing resumes before Mr. Justice Donald Bingham, Mr. Justice Algernon Smith and Mr. Justice Karl Harrison (acting).
