A HIGH COURT judge has frozen the Scotiabank account of attorney Varun Debideen.
Justice Frank Seepersad granted the freezing injunction late on Wednesday.
Debideen also cannot remove from TT, dispose of, or diminish the value of his assets up to the value of $6 million.
Advanced Hose and Marketing Ltd sought the injunction, claiming it transferred $7 million to a contractor who fraudulently misappropriated and converted the money for his own use and benefit.
Contacted late on Wednesday, Debideen denied any wrongdoing. He said he had never had direct dealings with either the company or the contractor.
"I had absolutely nothing to do with them," he said.
He said one of the named defendants had previously retained him to represent him in separate legal proceedings.
He said the money the "lender" paid him represented a loan to his client to repay the multi-million-dollar judgment debt against him (the client.)
"I was following the instructions of my client under the Legal Profession Act," he said.
Debideen says he intends to challenge the freezing order.
According to the application, Advanced Hose alleged the contractor deposited some, or all, of the funds into RBC Royal Bank TT accounts, and the money was then allegedly transferred to the attorney and Scotiabank. The electronic transaction allegedly took place on July 19.
The injunction application named Cordell Philbert – who received the $7 million to provide services in the potential construction project – RBC Royal Bank TT, Brad Persad, Joash Ramjattan, Mitoonlal Persad, Debideen, Za Limity Engineering Consultancy and Scotiabank TT as the eight defendants.
Advanced Hose and Marketing is now seeking to recover its $7 million. The company sought a previous order for disclosure of banking information, which allegedly showed Philbert transferred $6 million to Debideen’s Scotiabank account and additional sums, of $182,000, $20,000, $122,650, $100,000, $100,000 and $100,000, to Ramjattan.
The application alleged: “The first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh respondents have colluded with the intention of defrauding the applicant and/or intend to and/or have misappropriated the transferred sum and/or placed the transferred sum beyond the reach of the applicant.”
The third, fourth and fifth respondents, the application said, are Philbert’s business associates.
“The applicant engaged the first respondent in a prospective construction project which has since been cancelled. The transferred sum was in consideration of performance of construction services which was yet to commence. However, the said project and contractual relations between the first respondent has since broken down and no services have been rendered by the first respondent. The applicant, therefore, seeks restitution of the transferred sum.”
The application acknowledged that Scotiabank had been “mixed up” in the alleged fraud, but said the orders sought were necessary to investigate and pursue those ultimately responsible for Advanced Hose’s losses and assist in rec
