It is some eighteen months during which shareholders of the National Bank of Anguilla Ltd (NBA), and the Caribbean Commercial Bank Ltd (CCB), waited impatiently for their institutions to be restored by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) after its takeover on August 12, 2013.
Now, the shareholders, in the face of flying rumours, adding to the long delayed restorations, have taken what are seen to be firm resolutions to have their banks back. Both shareholder groups have met and decided on courses of action. NBA’s meeting was held on Wednesday evening, March 25, at the Teachers’ Resource Centre – and the CCB’s meeting took place on Thursday, March 26, at La Vue Conference Centre. The NBA’s meeting set up a committee to deal with follow-up matters, and the CCB’s meeting was also expected to do the same.
Because of press deadlines, it was only possible for The Anguillian to cover and report on NBA’s meeting for this edition of the newspaper. That meeting was chaired by Mr. Don Mitchell who outlined what he thought to have been the focus of the meeting: the election of a five-member committee to visit the ECCB to find out “whether there is any truth to the allegations that Mr Kennedy Hodge has been making…and to report back”. He added: “Let’s see whether his fears were well founded”. He was of the view that in that regard, Mr Hodge should not be a member of that committee.
“No Don,” Mr. Hodge interjected, in stating what he saw as the real purpose of the meeting. “Right now, for the past nineteen months, the National Bank has been without any representation whatsoever,” he stated. “You, the shareholders, have had zero representation…This meeting was called for you to select a committee that would be a pseudo board of the company… We cannot appoint a board because, under the takeover of the bank, the Company’s Act no longer applies… This meeting is not called to elect any fact-finding committee.
“This meeting is called to elect five people who would basically be responsible to you for the National Bank of Anguilla – not the bank itself – but the company which you own and has almost one billion dollars in assets…This is the agenda that we agreed to, months ago when this meeting was called. I come here to meet a different agenda. We are not going to go down that road, ladies and gentlemen. This meeting is called to elect a committee of five people…to give them the powers to co-opt if necessary. The names that we put forward are George Kentish (a long advocate for the restoration of the banks); David Hodge, either Dr. Lowell Hughes, Dr. Frankie Hughes or Freddy Hughes…depending on which one makes himself available, myself, and we ask Don. Mitchell to chair this committee…”
Replying, Mr Mitchell told the shareholders: “You basically have two different interpretations of what this meeting is about…I sat down and began to draft a resolution for this shareholders’ meeting that I thought reflected what we had agreed with Kennedy. That is, that we meet to find out whether there is any truth to the fears and the alarms and the concerns that he has been raising on the radio. This is a prerequisite for us to having Kennedy on any committee doing anything about National Bank of Anguilla. Is he creditworthy in what he has been saying? or is he discredited in what he has been saying because it turns out not to be true?…And I don’t think that it is appropriate for him to be on any committee representing the bank at this stage before we find out what is happening. I drafted a resolution, which is now being circulated to you which is a different resolution. So you have two resolutions before you – you have Kennedy’s resolution, and you have the other resolution…I was hoping Kennedy would have understood, after I had admonished him in my emails, about his need to not go this far, but he has decided to go ahead with it and to pursue his agenda and, therefore, you have two conflicting resolutions in front of you.”
Mr. Mitchell then invited the shareholders to vote on both resolutions. The count for the resolution, proposed by Mr. Hodge, by a show of hands, was 58. When the shareholders were asked to vote on Mr. Mitchell’s resolution, the count was zero – no hands went up. Mr. Mitchell left the meeting shortly afterwards, having previously said that he had a dinner appointment with the Chief Justice. Apart from the overwhelming show of hands, Mr Hodge was the recipient of much applause for his steadfastness and agitation in contending for the restoration of the banks – in particular the National Bank of Anguilla of which he was one of the founders.
Mr. Keithley Lake, who took over as chairman of the meeting, proceeded to read the first part of the resolution proposed by Kennedy Hodge. He then called for a motion for an amendment to reflect the tenure of the elected committee. That amendment read: “The committee shall report to the shareholders not more than every thirty days and the tenure of the committee shall not be for any longer than twelve months from this date.”
The duties of the committee were detailed in the first part of the resolution which was read previously as follows:
“To represent the shareholders of the bank; lead and direct the efforts to retrieve and restore the bank; meet with Government, the Central Bank, and any other authorities as representative of the shareholders in its execution of efforts to retrieve and restore the bank, or to appoint agents or select sub-committees to do so or supervise the same; enter into discussions with, and contract with, legal counsel and financiers as representative of the shareholders in its execution of efforts to retrieve and restore the bank.
“Seek contributions from shareholders and to manage and operate funds so raised in trust for the shareholders specifically to cover legal and financing expenses required in the effort to retrieve and restore the bank and expenses required for communications with shareholders using means including print and electronic media and websites; and to co-opt members as may be necessary to fill vacancies or meet a particular expertise requirement.”
The committee members are: Don Mitchell (if he so desires), David Hodge, James (Freddie) Hughes, George Kentish and Kennedy Hodge.
Meanwhile, Mr. Kennedy Hodge reported that the committee would require between US$60,000 to US$100,000 to finance its work. He acknowledged that during his long campaign he had so far collected US$9,000 towards the effort.
