TRIBUNAL DENIES KENNY ANTHONY'S PETITION

1. GRYNBERG PULLS AHEAD IN CASE AGAINST KENNY ANTHONY AND THE STLUCIA
LABOUR PARTY GOVERNMENT:
TRIBUNAL DENIES KENNY ANTHONY'S PETITION
Speaker Peter Foster may have managed to keep Grynberg hidden in plain
sight behind the padlocked lips of the wimps in opposition but that never
meant the issue was near dead, let alone buried.
It turns out that the Kenny Anthony government, whose altogether
entrancing mantra while campaigning for office in 1997 had been
“transparency and accountability,” continues to keep from the concerned
public important developments relating to the secret deal it had first struck
with Jack Grynberg’s RSM Production Corporation thirteen years ago.
As is by now common knowledge, almost three years after taking office the
prime minister had handed the controversial Denver, Colorado oilman Jack
Grynberg exclusive exploration rights to millions of acres of the Saint Lucia
seabed—without a related word to parliament. The only other party privy to
the surreptitious transaction was the finger-in-every-pie also known as Earl
Huntley.
He it was who had privately headhunted and imported the American for the
all-important purpose of confirming his voodoo conviction that the goo that

2. had stuck to his foot while swimming in the sea at Dauphin was palpable
evidence of rich oil deposits in the vicinity. His suspicions validated,
Huntley then introduced his new friend to the nation’s prime minister.
Soon afterward their deal was struck. Not even the prime minister’s Cabinet,
let alone parliament, had the smallest soupçon about the meeting, or that the
prime minister and Jack Grynberg had sealed an agreement on 29 March
2000, with Huntley as the sole witness.
At the time Grynberg was already busily engaged in the first stages of highly
costly litigation against the Grenada government for breach of contract
centered on a similar deal. If the then public servant and part-time oil diviner
Huntley knew the details of Grynberg’s suit against the Grenada
government, there is no evidence he shared such information with Saint
Lucia’s prime minister. In any event, the prime minister had never been
famous for carrying out due diligence—defined as “a measure of prudence,
activity, or assiduity, as is properly to be expected from, and ordinarily
exercised by a reasonable and prudent person under the particular
circumstances.”
In regular parlance, due diligence means making sure you get what you think
you are paying for, or getting into.
Some nine years after the Grynberg deal came to light, Huntley had
published an article in a local newspaper, wherein he claimed the prime
minister had made him the secret repository of all documents related to
Project Sea at Dauphin.
It turns out that not even the governor general, who alone is authorized to
issue (independent of the usual “on the advice of the prime minister” caveat)
exploration licenses in Saint Lucia, had any idea of the arrangements
between the oilman from Colorado and the island’s prime minister.
No matter, while there remains much to be explained, it is no longer a state
secret that the deal had soured a mere six months after it was signed, with
Grynberg invoking the agreement’s force majeure clause.
Finally, on April 2, 2012, his company had filed with the International
Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes a request for arbitration
against the Saint Lucia government. On

3. April 23, 2012 the ICSID’s secretary-general registered the request, notified
the involved parties and invited them to proceed to constitute an arbitral
tribunal as soon as possible.
On August 6, 2013, the secretary-general further notified the parties that all
three arbitrators—Prof. Siegfried H. Elsing (president), a national of the
Federal Republic of Germany; Judge Edward Nottingham, an American
appointed by the claimant RSM; and Dr. Gavin Griffith QC, an Australian,
appointed by the Saint Lucia government—had accepted their appointments.
Ms. Aurelia Antonietti, an ICSID team leader and legal counsel, was
designated to serve as secretary of the Tribunal.
One month later a small army of foreign lawyers filed on behalf of the
government of Saint Lucia a request for “provisional measures.” On
September 20, 2013 RSM filed its opposition to that request. The parties
having submitted their replies and rejoinders on provisional measures, the
tribunal held its first session and hearing on provisional measures with the
parties in New York City, on October 4.