Senior Reporter
The State has settled a multi-million-dollar constitutional claim brought by former Central Bank governor Dr Alvin Hilaire, but the Government has not disclosed how much the agreement will cost taxpayers.
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday confirmed the settlement deal, which was reached shortly before the matter was scheduled to go to trial before Justice Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds in the Port-of-Spain High Court.
In a WhatsApp response to Guardian Media, Persad-Bissessar revealed that attorneys representing Hilaire and the State entered into negotiations that led to a resolution of the matter.
“The parties arrived at an amicable settlement that secured their respective interests. The State is very pleased with the outcome,” the Prime Minister said.
The agreement brings to an end Hilaire’s legal challenge to the Cabinet’s June 24, 2025 decision to advise President Christine Kangaloo to revoke his appointment as Central Bank governor and appoint former finance minister Larry Howai in his place.
The decision came soon after Persad-Bissessar, at a post-Cabinet media briefing, had accused Hilaire of refusing to provide information on the country’s largest users of foreign exchange.
At the time, Persad-Bissessar had said Government was probing a problem with foreign exchange availability. She said the Government needed to know where the foreign exchange went, who received the foreign exchange, why they received it, the process used to determine who received foreign exchange, and how that foreign exchange was used or deployed.
However, she said while Government had approached Hilaire for information on this, those attempts were like “a bed of thorns or pulling teeth.” She also referred to possible court action by the Government to compel the financial regulator to provide the information.
“The Central Bank Governor refuses to divulge information,” she declared, adding that Hilaire had failed to provide the Auditor General with information in 2024 and again in 2025.
In his legal complaint after his dismissal, Hilaire had argued that the circumstances surrounding his removal breached his constitutional rights. He sought declarations that his dismissal was unlawful, along with approximately $9.8 million in compensation.
His claim included salary and benefits he would have earned had his appointment continued, as well as damages for emotional distress and alleged violations of his constitutional rights.
However, the amount agreed under yesterday’s settlement remains confidential under the deal signed by Hilaire’s legal team.
When asked about the financial terms yesterday, Hilaire’s attorney, Stuart Young, SC, said the parties were bound by a confidentiality agreement.
Contacted by Guardian Media, Hilaire also declined to comment on the settlement.
“Thanks for your question. I have nothing to add,” he said.
The settlement was reached before the hearing commenced. The trial was expected to feature the cross-examination of Hilaire and Minister in the Ministry of Finance Dr Kennedy Swaratsingh.
Instead, State attorneys approached Hilaire’s legal team before proceedings began and ultimately agreed to terms understood to be favourable to the former governor.
Swaratsingh, when contacted, said only that he wished Hilaire well.
Contacted yesterday, former Central Bank governor Winston Dookeran welcomed the outcome, expressing satisfaction that Hilaire had secured a settlement with which he was pleased.
Browne: Precedent set
in Rambaran case
Former minister in the Ministry of Finance Mariano Browne meanwhile said the settlement was unsurprising, given the legal precedent established in the case involving another former Central Bank governor, Jwala Rambarran.
Rambarran was dismissed in December 2015 on the advice of the then People’s National Movement administration led by former prime minister Dr Keith Rowley. He subsequently filed a constitutional claim, arguing that his rights to protection of the law and a fair hearing had been breached.
In June 2022, Justice Devindra Rampersad ruled in Rambarran’s favour, finding that his dismissal was unlawful and that his constitutional rights had been violated.
The court later assessed compensation at more than $7.5 million before statutory deductions, resulting in approximately $5.47 million being payable, in addition to an earlier award of $175,000 in vindicatory damages.
Although the Attorney General appealed, the Court of Appeal, in February 2025, upheld the findings that Rambarran had been treated unfairly and that his constitutional rights had been breached, while the judges differed on aspects of the compensation award.
Browne said the principles established in the Rambarran case were directly relevant to Hilaire’s circumstances.
He noted that where an employer seeks to terminate a person’s appointment for cause, the allegations must be established and the individual must be given an opportunity to respond.
Pointing to the principles of natural justice, Browne said affected persons are entitled to a fair process before decisions impacting their employment and rights are made.
“If you’re firing somebody and you’re firing for cause, you have to show cause. And show cause means that you also, under the rules of natural justice, have to give the person the opportunity to rebut the allegations,” Browne said.
He argued that the failure to follow that process in Rambarran’s case resulted in the court’s ruling in that former governor’s favour.
According to Browne, the same legal principles would likely have posed significant challenges for the State had Hilaire’s claim proceeded to trial.
“Having set the law and set a precedent, it would have been hard-pressed for the UNC to go to court and say that they had justifiably dismissed Dr Hilaire. So it was always a matter of time. It was a question of when, not whether or if it was going to happen,” he said.
Browne also suggested that settling the matter may have spared the State a potentially larger financial liability.
“If they had gone to court, it could have been worse,” he said.
With the settlement, however, there will be no judicial determination of Hilaire’s constitutional claims. Unlike Rambarran’s case, which resulted in court findings against the State, Hilaire’s matter concluded through negotiations between the parties.
Browne said the broader issue extends beyond any individual Central Bank governor and speaks to the obligation of governments to respect the legal rights of public officials, regardless of which administration is in office.
He pointed to the courts’ role in safeguarding citizens’ rights when State agencies act unlawfully.
“The bottom line, that is why people go to court. Court is there to defend rights regardless of which administration is in power,” Browne said.
