Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
KINGSTON BUSINESSMAN Donald Panton has failed in his bid to get an adjournment in the $2 billion lawsuit against him.
The Court of Appeal turned down the application and ordered yesterday that the hearing should continue in the Supreme Court. The court directed that the hearing should continue in the first half of the Easter term which commences in April.
Solicitor General Michael Hylton, Q.C., said yesterday that he was having discussions with the Registrar of the Supreme Court for the hearing to continue in June.
Mr. Panton, his wife Janet and their son Jeffrey had appealed against Justice McIntosh's ruling on January 30. Attorney-at-law Abe Dabdoub had applied for an adjournment on behalf of the Pantons on the ground that their lawyers Chancellor and Company had withdrawn from the case.
STAY TO GET LEGAL REPRESENTATION
Justice McIntosh refused to grant them a stay to get legal representation and the hearing proceeded. The Pantons went to the Court of Appeal but Justice Howard Cooke heard the application in Chambers and refused to grant them a stay.
The Court of Appeal subsequently granted them a stay pending the hearing of the appeal. The Court of Appeal comprising the President, Justice Paul Harrison, Justice Algernon Smith and Justice Karl Harrison heard the appeal and ruled that Justice McIntosh was correct when he refused to grant an adjournment.
The court referred to the fact that the Pantons had legal representation at the case management conference in the Supreme Court.
The court said that attorneys-at-law R.N.A. Henriques, Q.C., and Mr. Abe Dabdoub, who represented the Pantons on appeal, had been associated with the case for several years.
The Government-owned Financial Institutions Services Limited has sued the Pantons arising from the collapse of the Blaise financial entities in 1994.
The Government had to pay out more than $600 million to depositors.
The suit has been pending in the Supreme Court since 1995.
