Dear Editor,
We are addressing this open request for help to the honourable people of Anguilla during this auspicious time of your 50th Anniversary (May 30) of the Anguilla Revolution. Firstly, we would like to congratulate you on your continued stability as a nation and wish everyone God’s blessings.
For the record, we the citizens of the Caribbean who have registered businesses, personal or business bank accounts in Anguilla over the past 10 years have had funds deposited in our bank accounts prior to March 24, 2016 confiscated.
The National Bank of Anguilla (NBA) (Private Banking & Trust Ltd. (PB&T)) was regulated by the Anguilla Financial Services Commission and not the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB). Both of these institutions acted improperly and they facilitated the removal of the Depositors funds from the PB&T.
The transgression took place under the nose of the Government of Anguilla, United Kingdom Government, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and other Offices of the Government since they are all alleged to have been part and parcel of the decision making process that has led to this mistreatment of honest, hard-working Caribbean citizens and Anguilla nationals.
My Anguillian comrades, we are being taken unfair advantage of, and we need your support to ensure good judgement and honesty prevails to ensure the return of Depositors rightfully owned assets and the full guarantee of all Customer deposits.
Our rights have been violated and our assets were taken unjustly and we are all the victims of naked discrimination against foreigners and nationals.
Furthermore, no provision has been made for prompt, adequate and effective compensation as required by International Law.
There are numerous Anguilla registered companies and their shareholders that have been affected. One of the prime examples is a company called SATAY Limited which was incorporated since 2005 in Anguilla. SATAY Limited is a fully registered business with a CBTC Licence granted by the Ministry of Finance and existing under the laws of Anguilla to conduct business on the Island of Anguilla.
SATAY Limited has two local Directors on its board and this entity indirectly provided employment to seven Anguilla nationals through its business related alliance with Counsel Limited, a locally owned accounting firm.
Counsel Limited provides support to 11 other real Caribbean-based trading companies such as SATAY Limited. We (Depositors) are all residents in the Caribbean and engage in active business.
The shareholders of SATAY Limited originally chose to conduct business in Anguilla due to the ease of which transactions could be facilitated through the professionalism, dedication and prompt service they received from the Anguilla staff working at the NBA and Counsel Limited.
Secondly, we would like to present some background information so that everyone understands what has occurred in your banking sector and the present terrible financial situation. Until recently there were in Anguilla only two “domestic” banks, i.e. banks owned by Anguillian shareholders and not affiliated with any foreign bank, to wit, the NBA, and the Caribbean Commercial Bank (CCB). Both the NBA and the CCB had subsidiaries which were licensed to accept deposits from persons who were not citizens of Anguilla (the “Offshore Banks”).
Neither parent bank (the “Onshore Banks”), nor any other bank operating in Anguilla, was licensed to accept deposits from persons who were not citizens, or from companies beneficially owned by persons who were not citizens of Anguilla.
However, because the beneficial owner of SATAY Limited and the owners of the other 11 Caribbean based trading companies, are not Anguillan “belongers,” SATAY Limited’s operating bank account and the other 11 companies was for some reason opened in one of the two Offshore Banks, the NBA (Private Banking & Trust) Ltd.
From inception the NBA PB&T, in spite of being a separate legal entity, was operated by its parent, the NBA, as if it were no more than an internal department, and a cash cow, of the parent. PB&T sent deposited funds to the NBA which treated them as its own, using them as it saw fit. The Directors, Officers and management of the PB&T were oblivious to their fiduciary duty to protect the PB&T’s accountholders, even after the liquidity problems of the NBA became, or should have become, apparent to them.
On or about August 12, 2013, to protect the position of the Onshore Banks’ depositors, and without reference to the Offshore Bank’s depositors, both Onshore Banks were placed into Conservatorship, subject to the control of the ECCB.
The PB&T was not in Conservatorship, but, from the time of the appointment of the NBA’s Conservator, being that PB&T was a subsidiary of the NBA, the Conservator of the NBA was the de facto operating manager of the PB&T.
Consequently, the highly improper practices established during NBA’s pre-Conservatorship management of PB&T were adopted and continued during the Conservatorship to the ultimate detriment of the PB&T and its depositors. That the Conservator, like the NBA/PB&T managers he succeeded, might have a conflict of interest, and conflicting fiduciary duties to the two banks, appears to have been intentionally ignored by all concerned, including the ECCB, their appointed Conservator, and the directors, officers and managers of both the Onshore Bank and the Offshore Bank.
The ECCB and the Anguilla Financial Services Commission must be held accountable for the mismanagement of all local and Caribbean Depositors accounts as they willingly accepted deposits and allowed withdrawals from SATAY Limited’s account at the NBA PB&T.
SATAY Limited never received any official notice and was never made aware of the fact that the NBA was placed into Conservatorship on August 12, 2013 and was subject to the control of a Conservator appointed by the ECCB from that date until April 22, 2016. In any event the Conservator has never placed any restrictions on withdrawals from balances on SATAY Limited’s accounts or any of the other business accounts at the NBA.
Thirdly, SATAY Limited was operating as an active legitimate business with a bank account that was fully functional from 2005 up to April 2016.
No solutions or viable alternatives are being offered to SATAY Limited or any of the Caribbean based Depositors and their businesses at this time. We have no access to our bank accounts and irreparable harm is being done to our businesses and livelihoods.
Since appointment, the ECCB as Conservators of the Onshore Banks worked on a plan to restructure them (the “Resolution Plan”). That plan was implemented on April 25, 2016 with the merger of the two privately owned Onshore Banks into a new entity, the National Commercial Bank of Anguilla (NCBA), wholly owned by the Government of Anguilla.
The Offshore Banks had no part in the merger. All the assets of the Onshore Banks were acquired by the NCBA, but only some of their liabilities were assumed. Among the assets acquired are the PB&T’s depositors’ funds in the custody of the NBA. Among the liabilities not assumed is the obligation to pay to the PB&T or to the depositors of the PB&T any funds deposited prior to 24 March 2016.
The ECCB and one of its appointed Conservators (who is now the CEO of NCBA), the Receiver of the NBA (a former senior employee of the NBA), in collusion with the Government of Anguilla, sought to protect only its domestic depositors, and to do so at the expense of its Caribbean-based and other foreign depositors, instead of taking meaningful steps to correct the mismanagement of the assets of the Onshore Banks which led to their collapse in the first place.
The only way for Anguilla to exist with stability and integrity within the global financial system and region is by ensuring due diligence prevails and the money that was wrongly taken from the PB&T bank accounts and local registered companies is immediately returned to the Depositors.
Failing this, Anguilla will lose all credibility and stability in the international banking sector and we will all be going down a long road to financial loss through lengthy litigation processes.
The news of the Anguilla financial debacle is gaining media coverage globally and many more Anguilla nationals in the indigenous banking and financial services support sectors will lose their jobs as the locally registered Caribbean-based and international businesses will be forced to take their investments elsewhere and bank accounts will never materialise at the newly formed NCBA.
Our fate is in your hands and we implore the good people of Anguilla and local Government to implement appropriate regulation and legislation, judicious licensing, comprehensive monitoring and good governance to ensure the Caribbean based Depositors bank accounts and rightfully owned business assets are returned to us so that we would not lose faith in your system and can continue our good business relationships with Anguilla.
Respectfully,
The Depositors
