On January 16, 2026, Attorney General John Jeremie SC stood before the House of Representatives and announced the government was ending all civil matters related to CL Financial Group's 2009 collapse. He called the 17-year investigation "a joke" and described it as possibly the largest case of fraud and financial tragedy in Trinidad and Tobago, and possibly the Caribbean. On the same day, the government tabled the Colman Commission of Enquiry report - a document completed nearly a decade earlier that the previous PNM administration never released.
The collapse of CL Financial was the largest corporate failure in Caribbean history. At its peak, the conglomerate encompassed over 65 companies across 32 countries, with assets exceeding US$100 billion - CLICO, British American Insurance, CLICO Investment Bank, Caribbean Money Market Brokers. Seventeen years after its implosion, the state has spent up to $32 billion on the bailout and its aftermath. Not one person has been criminally charged. Lawrence Duprey, the man at the centre of it all, died on August 24, 2024, at 89. He never saw a courtroom.
The Scale of the Damage
The State spent approximately $28 billion rescuing CL Financial and its subsidiaries to prevent systemic contagion. Another $3 to $4 billion went to legal, accounting, and administrative expenses. The AG's office alone paid $346.8 million for CLICO-related legal work - with a broader estimate of $417.6 million including all parties. The Commission of Enquiry cost taxpayers approximately $150 million. Combined legal, liquidation, and administrative costs reached roughly $873 million.
After all of that, $13 billion remains unrecovered. The government injected it. The system absorbed it. Nobody paid for it.
The trigger, in January 2009, was a liquidity crisis. CLICO and its affiliates had invested policyholder funds in illiquid assets - real estate developments, private equity stakes, and long-term projects that could not be converted to cash when policyholders demanded their money. The Central Bank took control of CLICO under the Central Bank Act on February 13, 2009. Civil suits were filed against the company's principals. Those suits consumed 17 years of court time, legal fees, and public attention without producing a judgment.
The Report That Sat for a Decade
The Colman Commission of Enquiry was appointed on November 17, 2010, by President George Maxwell Richards. Sir Anthony Colman QC, a retired British High Court judge, served as sole commissioner, tasked with examining the CLICO and Hindu Credit Union collapses.
The commission delivered its final report in 2016. The PNM government under Keith Rowley did not table it. For nearly a decade, the findings of a publicly funded inquiry into the largest financial scandal in the country's history sat unreleased. When the UNC won the April 2025 general election, Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar committed to making it public. AG Jeremie tabled it on January 16, 2026 - the same day he announced the end of the civil cases.
The findings were damning. The collapse was caused by a defective business model and the failure of senior management to change it. Corporate governance did not meet Central Bank requirements. State intervention was unavoidable. The report recommended criminal charges, noted widespread fraud, and cleared the Central Bank of failing to prevent the collapse - shifting responsibility squarely onto the company's leadership.
The Man Who Escaped Accountability
Lawrence Duprey inherited CLICO from his uncle Cyril Duprey and expanded it into the CL Financial empire. During the Colman Commission proceedings, Duprey admitted making "donations" to political figures on both sides of the aisle - PNM and UNC alike. The Central Bank and CLICO filed civil lawsuits against Duprey and co-director Andre Monteil for alleged mismanagement and misappropriation of CLICO assets. The allegation was that the interests of policyholders and investors were used to support personal lifestyles and private business ventures.
Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard spent nearly a decade deliberating whether criminal charges could be laid. None were filed. Duprey died on August 24, 2024, at 89, at a health facility in Port of Spain. His death closed the possibility of criminal prosecution permanently.
Two days after the AG tabled the Colman report, the Central Bank asked the High Court to adjourn its long-running lawsuit against former CL Financial directors while it reviewed the commission's findings. The pattern is consistent: delay upon delay until the passage of time renders accountability moot.
Both Sides of the Aisle
The CL Financial saga has never belonged to one political party. The PNM under Patrick Manning initiated the bailout in 2009. The UNC-led People's Partnership continued the rescue from 2010 to 2015. The PNM under Keith Rowley managed the aftermath from 2015 to 2025 - and sat on the Colman report the entire time. Now the UNC government under Persad-Bissessar is the one ending the civil proceedings.
That decision lands differently when you consider who is back doing government legal work. Former Attorney General Anand Ramlogan - who faced charges in a TT$1 billion-plus legal fee kickback scheme alongside attorney Gerald Ramdeen - has re-entered the picture. Those charges were discontinued in October 2022. Ramlogan's firm, Freedom Law Chambers, was subsequently retained by the AG's office to advise the Ministry of Homeland Security during the 2024 state of emergency and in the matter of former Central Bank Governor Alvin Hilaire versus the Cabinet.
Former AG Faris Al-Rawi, who served as a prosecution witness in the Ramlogan-Ramdeen matter, called the arrangement "vengeance." Whether that characterisation holds or not, the optics are hard to ignore. The government ending CL Financial cases while channelling legal work to a firm whose principal had his own corruption charges dropped raises questions no press conference can answer.
Duprey's admitted donations to both parties make the bipartisan failure more than coincidence. Every administration that touched this file found reasons to delay, defer, or drop accountability. The result is the same regardless of who held power: nobody paid.
The Liquidation That Raised Its Own Questions
In October 2025, the Police Commissioner directed the Anti-Corruption Investigation Bureau to launch a criminal probe into the sale of key CL Financial assets. The trigger was the Trincity Mall transaction. Court-appointed liquidators Grant Thornton sold the mall in April 2025 for $505 million. A 2021 court-approved valuation had assessed the property at $900 million - nearly double the sale price. The High Court issued an injunction on October 13, 2025, halting the sale. The buyers subsequently backed out, citing the criminal investigation.
Stakeholders alleged the liquidation was not conducted in an open or statutorily compliant manner, raising allegations of "malfeasance in public office." The AG also ended Privy Council proceedings involving CL Financial's shares in Proman Holdings, settling by allowing the disputed shares to be sold. Whether this was sound stewardship or a fire sale is a question the public has no independent means to assess.
The Policyholders
CLICO has repaid its government bailout obligation. It cleared its remaining $1 billion liability following the sale of its stake in Methanol Holdings International Ltd. The company is now profitable - its 2023 audited financial statements show $3.18 billion in accumulated surplus and $2.30 billion in net profit.
The CLICO Policyholders Group says assenting policyholders are still entitled to the 15% residual balance plus accrued interest on their policies. Their position is direct: there can be no full closure until the outstanding money is paid. CLICO is profitable. The government spent $32 billion to make it so. The policyholders who lost their savings are still waiting for the remainder.
The damage extends across the Caribbean. Close to 2,000 British American Insurance policyholders from seven Eastern Caribbean territories lost an estimated 75% of over EC$800 million. Their representative group, BACOL, brought a lawsuit to the Caribbean Court of Justice seeking compensation from Trinidad and Tobago. The CCJ dismissed the claim in October 2024. After 16 years, their losses remain unresolved.
What $32 Billion Bought
The bailout prevented a systemic financial collapse. That outcome was necessary and - by the Colman Commission's assessment - unavoidable. But the question is what the subsequent 17 years of investigation, litigation, and public expenditure produced beyond the immediate rescue.
The answer: a commission report that sat unreleased for a decade. A DPP who spent nearly a decade deciding not to prosecute. A principal who died at 89 without facing charges. Civil suits that the AG himself called "a joke." A liquidation process now under criminal investigation for selling assets at half their appraised value. Legal costs approaching $1 billion. And $13 billion in public funds still unrecovered.
Every financial system depends on the credibility of its enforcement framework. When a major institution collapses, the investigation and prosecution are supposed to show that misconduct has consequences. The CL Financial closure shows the opposite - that in Trinidad and Tobago, a financial collapse of historic proportions can play out over 17 years and $32 billion, and the outcome can be nothing.
The AG's own word for it was "a joke." He was not wrong about the outcome. The question is whether the joke is on the people who managed CL Financial or on the Trinbagonians who trusted it.
Sources
- Newsday: "AG ditches civil suit on CL Financial crash - billion wasted in legal fees" (January 16, 2026)
- Newsday: "Govt negotiates sale of CL Financial shares to Proman, ends Privy Council appeal" (January 2026)
- Newsday: "Central Bank lawsuit against CL Financial directors halted" (January 19, 2026)
- Newsday: "Former CL Financial executive chairman Lawrence Duprey dies" (August 24, 2024)
- Newsday: "CoP orders ACIB to probe CL Financial assets sale" (October 2025)
- Trinidad Guardian: "AG: T&T spent up to $32B on CL Financial collapse" (January 2026)
- Trinidad Guardian: "Colman report clears Central Bank of failing to act to prevent CLICO's collapse" (January 2026)
- Trinidad Express: "AG office pays $348M on CLICO collapse" (January 2026)
- Trinidad Express: "PM shouts 'Faris' as AG ends CL Financial's 'joke' probe" (January 2026)
- Trinidad Express: "No full closure until we are paid, says CLICO Policyholders Group" (2026)
- Trinidad Express: "DPP's long silence on CLICO" (editorial)
- CNC3: "$417.6M for legal work on CLICO collapse" (January 2026)
- CNC3: "Long-delayed CL Financial report to be laid in Parliament" (January 2026)
- Stabroek News: "Trinidad AG ends CL Financial's 'joke' probe" (January 2026)
- Stabroek News: "Trincity Mall buyers back out" (October 2025)
- Jamaica Observer: "T&T govt ends civil lawsuit involving CL Financial" (January 2026)
- Jamaica Gleaner: "After 16 years, CLICO compensation issues still unresolved" (October 2025)
- Caribbean National Weekly: "Trinidad and Tobago to end legal proceedings linked to CL Financial collapse" (January 2026)
- Newsday: "British American's regional shareholders lose claim over CLICO bailout" (October 2024)
- Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago: Report of the Commission of Enquiry into CLICO and HCU (tabled January 16, 2026)
- Privy Council: Attorney General v CL Financial Ltd (In Liquidation) [2025] UKPC 41