00:00A significant ruling today from a high court in the matter of Peter Miller vs. Maria Daniel
00:05rising out of insolvency proceedings involving the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association.
00:12Delivering his decision on February 26th, Justice Frank C. Passard allowed Miller's appeal
00:17under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and set aside the Trustee's Notice of Disallowance dated
00:23May 12th, 2022. At the heart of the dispute was Miller's proof of claim for just over
00:30U.S. $635,000 under a two-year contract valued at $600,000 payable in monthly installments of U.S.
00:40$25,000. The Trustee Maria Daniel had determined that Miller effectively stopped performing his
00:47services after three months of the contract and allowed only sums representing three-month salary
00:53pre-contract work and expenses valuing the claim at approximately $737,000.
01:01But Justice Sebas had found that conclusion was not reasonably supported by the evidence.
01:07In strong language, the judge stated the Trustee was unhelpful, slightly arrogant, unnecessarily
01:14adversarial, and her evidence was marked by evasion during cross-examination.
01:19The court said her approach was not thorough. Instead, it was perfunctory,
01:24slipshod and fell below the standard, which is objectively expected of someone who acts as an
01:29officer of the court. Central to the ruling were June and July 2020 email exchanges between Miller and
01:37Chairman of the Normalization Committee, Robert Haddad. Justice Sebas had found it patently obvious that
01:44the trustee did not give appropriate weight and consideration to those emails, which contradicted
01:50the position that Miller had abandoned his contract after March 2020. The court held it is obvious to
01:57this court that the June and July email exchanges illustrated that the appellant actively communicated
02:03with the functionaries within the TTFA after March 2020. And further, the trustee neither maintained an even
02:11hand, nor did she properly balance the information she received. In perhaps the most critical finding,
02:18the judge ruled, quote, the respondent robotically accepted Mr. Haddad's views, but she displayed
02:24skepticism when she reviewed the information provided by the appellant. This approach was not indicative of
02:30the adoption of an even-handed stance, end quote. Justice Sebas had concluded that the trustee made
02:36palpable errors of fact and prematurely and unreasonably determined that Miller ceased working
02:41after March 2020. As a result, the notice of disallowance was set aside. After reviewing the evidence
02:48and adopting what he described as a practical and business-minded approach under the Bankruptcy and
02:54Insolvency Act, the court awarded Miller an additional U.S. $100,000 beyond what had previously been
03:01validated. The decision marks a significant development in the ongoing financial and legal fallout stemming
03:07from the TTFA's insolvency proceedings.
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