The High Court is to deliver its ruling by October 15 in a landmark shareholder class‑action suit brought by hundreds of former minority investors in Cable & Wireless (Barbados) Limited, in one of the longest‑running class‑action civil cases in Barbadian jurisprudence.
The suit, brought by hundreds of former minority shareholders of Cable & Wireless (Barbados) Limited, was filed in November 2017 but the court only began hearing evidence on March 6 2023.
The trial, which was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and a series of legal and procedural issues, centres on a request by the claimants for a ruling on a controversial 2017 corporate merger.
Following Friday’s hearing in the High Court, Ricky Went, a former minority shareholder and the man at the forefront of the legal action, said that though the process had taken time, “It’s good there’s a decision date. Justice and equity will be forthcoming”.
Went told Barbados TODAY: “The aim today was to hear the parties. The defendants were awaiting guidance, so, accordingly, they didn’t file anything. The court expressed surprise. There may’ve been a lack of clarity.”
He also reported that the court had granted the parties leave and set timelines for additional written submissions leading up to the decision day in October.
The defendants have been given until April 10 to file, while the claimants must reply in writing by April 17.
Went also said that the parties acknowledged that the Privy Council’s recent ruling in a similar case in Jamaica, which favoured the minority shareholders, was “explicit and helpful”.
“The court also agreed that the ruling is clear and helpful, and that no oral amplifying may be required. Yes, after Privy Council’s ruling, our lawyers were ready to amplify.”
Fortified by the major legal win in Jamaica, the former minority shareholders in Cable & Wireless Barbados (C&W) have renewed their fight in the High Court, filing fresh submissions in October last year. They argue their rights were sidelined during the amalgamation of C&W Barbados and C&W West Indies Limited.
Their case may hinge on the recent decision by the UK‑based Privy Council, which dismissed an appeal by Cable & Wireless Jamaica (CWJ) and ruled in favour of minority shareholder Eric Jason Abrahams.
At the heart of both cases is a question of fairness: should minority shareholders be treated as a separate class when their shares are being cancelled or bought out, while majority shareholders retain theirs? The Privy Council said yes, and the Barbados claimants say that the ruling strengthens their own argument.
The claimants maintain that the scheme’s approval process failed to meet the legal threshold required under Barbados law. By treating minority and majority shareholders as a single voting class, despite their fundamentally different treatment under the transaction, they argue that the statutory majorities were never properly achieved.
With the Privy Council’s ruling now reinforcing their position, the minority shareholders’ group is asking the Barbados High Court to declare the 2017 merger invalid, or to recognise the process as oppressive and grant substantive relief.
The Privy Council’s ruling emphasised that voting classes in such schemes must be based on legal rights and how those rights are affected, not on shared interests or motives.
Since the Barbados minority shareholders were being bought out while the majority retained their stake, the claimants argue they were clearly in a different class and should have voted independently.
The failure to hold separate class meetings meant the required approval was not valid, the submission states, and the scheme should never have been sanctioned.
Among the nine defendants named in the Barbados case is Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice‑Chancellor of the University of the West Indies.
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