Ken Tomlinson, receiver for the indebted Jamaica Transformer Company Limited (JATCO), says he will be putting the company's assets up for sale in the wake of a Supreme Court decision throwing out an application to bar him from the property.

"We are now seeing what is salvageable and are going to advertise the assets," said Tomlinson, but declined comment on the timelines he was working with.

Fight to continue

But the Lewis family, while acknowledging a first-round defeat, vowed the fight would continue for a business whose networth patriarch Leslie Lewis estimated at $250 million.

"We are after getting back our business," said the older Lewis, founder and managing director of a business labelled the only one of its kind in the region.

Another case is pending against Tomlinson for destruction of property, said Lewis, and is set for hearing November 6.

The court, he adds, has mandated that the parties enter mediation on a near $200 million suit in which Lewis alleges that Tomlinson entered a 73 Caledonia Road property illegally, damaged 26 trailer loads, amounting to 1,368 pre-manufactured transformers, and polluted the property with transformer oil.

The Mandeville-based business-man said his family has filed a combined $750 million of lawsuits against the debt collector and its agent.

"They want to destroy ourbusiness," said Lewis, noting that Tomlinson - who had been hired by bad-debt collectors Jamaica Redevelopment Foundation Inc - had ordered that no more transformers be manufactured when he took control of the company last July.

$24 million debt

JATCO, according to Lewis, was $24 million in debt to Workers' Bank when it went bust. Interest charges have pushed the liability to about $71 million, he said.

But other sources say the debt is closer to $100 million.

The company, at its peak, was earning $80 million annually, said Lewis.

lavern.clarke@gleanerjm.com