News report from Grenada about Henley & Partners ‘conflict of interests’ in the sale-of-passports scheme there

CARIBBEAN NEWS NOW

Grenada citizens group writes PM, finance minister
Published on March 9, 2012

ST GEORGE’S, Grenada — Well-known community and environmental activist, Sandra Ferguson, has expressed concern at reports that the Swiss firm, Henley and Partners, has been named as advisors on the proposed Grenada Individual Investor Programme (GIIP). Ferguson, in her capacity as a member of Citizens in Defence of Grenada’s Lands and Heritage, is worried at perceived conflict of interests involving one official of Henley and Partners.

“The conflict of interests, as we perceive it, involves one,Mr Wendell Lawrence of Henley and Partners, who is also a member of the board of directors, and who is also a member of the board of directors of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank and a member of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission,” Ferguson said in a letter to Grenada’s Prime Minister and Minister of Legal Affairs, Tillman Thomas, and Finance Minister Nazim Burke.

“The government of Grenada, via the Minister of Finance and also through the Office of Private Sector Development,” Ferguson noted, “recently announced its intention to introduce a citizenship-by-investment programme. The nation was advised that the Swiss firm of Henley & Partners was advising the government on the setting up of such a programme. The nation was also advised that St Kitts and Dominica have citizenship-by-investment programmes.”

Ferguson said the website of Henley and Partners identifies Wendell E. Lawrence as a partner at the business’s main Caribbean office in St Kitts.

According to the website, writes Ferguson, Lawrence “deals specifically with the citizenship-by-investment programmes in St Kitts & Nevis and the Commonwealth of Dominica.”

Ferguson said her website search also reveals that Lawrence is St Kitts’ Ambassador to the OECS, CARICOM and the Association of Caribbean States.

It also shows that Lawrence represents the government of St Kitts & Nevis on the board of governors of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, and is a member of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission, which appoints the judges to the Caribbean Court of Justice.

According to Ferguson, “given Mr Lawrence’s association with Henley and Partners and with the citizenship-by-investment programme in St Kitts, his membership of the board of directors of a regional financial regulatory institution, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, and his membership of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission, constitutes a conflict of interests inimical to the public image of these two august institutions and to the interests of the citizens of the region served by these institutions.”

In her letter to Thomas and Burke, Ferguson said that “as citizens of Grenada who take a keen interest in the governance processes of our country, we consider it our responsibility to also take an interest in the governance of the regional institutions to which Grenada belongs. We thank you for the opportunity to bring the matter to your attention.”

Grenadian journalist and public relations specialist, Hamlet Mark, says Henley and Partners is run by a group of people who manages what is known as SLC.

According to Mark, he has had opportunity to watch SLC “up close and personal” during election campaigning in St Kitts.

“What they are is a campaign finance-raising and election campaign management outfit,” Mark claims. “I just have a sneaky feeling in my bones that this new proposed engagement in Grenada is not coincidental to the fact that general elections there are about a year away.”