The Caribbean Court of Justice has unanimously enforced a $179 million arbitration award against the Guyana Government to Azad Meerza, of Falcon Transportation and Construction Services, who back in 2017 had been awarded a road building contract.

 A dispute had arisen over the execution of the project, between Mirza and the Ministry of Agriculture, which saw the matter being referred to Arbitration. But before the Arbitration was completed, one of the three members of the tribunal resigned, which saw the other two members proceeding with the process and awarding Mirza more than $179,000,000.

An application was subsequently made to the High Court for the arbitration award to be enforced but Justice Franklyn Holder had ruled at the time that the arbitration tribunal was not properly constituted.

A case of bias against one of the Arbitrators on the Tribunal had arisen and was also being litigated through the Courts, with the CCJ this afternoon dismissing that aspect of the case as well saying that the Arbitrator who was called into question, had disclosed his prior involvement in Arbitration and did not violate his duty to disclose what was already known.

The ruling was handed down by Justice Arif Bulkan of the CCJ.

“Ultimately, this court determined, that there is no exhaustive list of situations that automatically suggest apparent bias by an arbitrator which each case having to be evaluated on the basis of its specific facts and perspectives from the fair-minded observer. On the facts before the court, there is no evidence to support the notion of apparent bias on the part of Mr. Gonsalves,” the CCJ found.

The Court agreed that the mere fact that having sat on a panel on the same dispute between the parties, does not automatically give rise to a presumption of apparent bias, but rather something additional of substance is required for such a finding.

Justice Bulkan said the Court discussed a number of reasons in support of the findings, including the fact that Arbitrators and Judges are trained to be fair and open minded.

The CCJ  also found that the Government waited 7 months to object to the constitution of the panel when the Arbitration rule allows for a 15-day window to do so.

The appeal was fully dismissed.

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