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Former Energy Minister
Gregory Bowen |
Friday
October 17th,
2008:
After two
days of hearing in a New York district
court, the judge dismissed the case
brought by Grynberg against the former
Minister of energy Gregory Bowen and
others , in which he claimed among other
things that the former Minister asked
him for a bribe.
The
Government of Grenada in 2005 had
terminated Grynberg’s agreement to
explore for oil and gas in Grenadian
waters after he had invoked a state of
force majeure only 14 days after
he had signed the agreement in July of
1996, and used the inactive period to
sell rights that he did not have,
instead of investing in the exploration
for oil and gas.
Grynberg in
an effort to have the agreement
re-instated, formulated a lawsuit in
which he alleged that the then Energy
Minister asked him for a bribe and
threatened the Keith Mitchell
Administration to file the lawsuit if
his demand was not met. Neither
Government nor Mr. Bowen succumbed.
Grynberg’s
original complaint in the New York
district court was thrown out by the
judge. He thereafter amended his
complaint three times in an effort to
keep the issue alive until the general
elections in 2008 in a locally co-ordinated
effort to remove Gregory Bowen and the
New National Party from office.
In
dismissing the case against Mr. Bowen,
the judge found Grynberg’s allegations
to be scandalous, baseless and false.
It must be
noted that despite being the winner of a
lawsuit in New York, the individual
parties paid their respective legal
cost. However in this case, the judge
advised that he would entertain an
application for Grynberg to reimburse
the legal fees of the defendants,
pointing to the glaring libelous abuse
perpetuated by Grynberg.
Mr. Bowen
will be holding a Press Conference in
the near future with his legal team,
where all the issues will be ventilated.
Further, all legal recourse in respect of
damages in both jurisdictions, Grenada
and the USA will be investigated.
It is
instructive to note that by Mr. Bowen
winning the case, not only is his name
cleared, but he has also removed
potential damages of US $500 million
from the Government and the people of
Grenada; the amount that Grynberg sued
for.
One would
recall that in 2007
Mr. Grynberg’s attempt to
revive the case against Minister Bowen
was dismissed on
Friday September 28th 2007
on a submission filed by Mr. Bowen’s
Attorney Jade Johnson. |
