CATEGORY:COURT MATTER
--------------------------


by Trevor Thwaites
Inside Grenada correspondent
Saturday November 18,2006


GRENADA: Energy Minister, the Hon Gregory Bowen, is confident that Grenada will prevail in a dispute with RSM Production Corporation, which is now before the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) of the World Bank in London, England.

Owner/Manager of Grynberg Petroleum Company, Jack Grynberg, has filed a law suite against Bowen and three other defendants - Mikhail Fridman, Len Blavatnik and Lev Korchagin of the Russia - for interfering with a petroleum agreement signed between Grenada and RSM for the exploration of natural gas and oil in the waters of Grenada.

Minister Bowen told reporters at a press conference last week Tuesday in St George’s that the agreement was signed on July 4, 1996, but was terminated in 2002 because of the unprofessional behaviour of Grynberg, who invoked a force majeure, contending that the boundaries between Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela were not delimited. This stalled the exploration by RSM.

The Energy Minister, who was appointed in 1999, said Grynberg was so contentious that he took Trinidad and Tobago before the Courts in Hamburg and Venezuela to the courts in the US over the delimitation issue, while Grenada was trying to negotiate its maritime boundaries with its neighbors (Trinidad and Venezuela).

The Energy Minister said that Grynberg wrote to the Prime Minister in 2002 asking for his removal and also seeking to renew the contract. However Grynberg’s Lawyer, Daniel L Abrahams, has filed a law suite dated October 31, 2006 accusing the Energy Minister of interfering with the contractual agreement between Grenada and RSM and claiming damages worth $500,000,000. Bowen has also been accused of soliciting a bribe from Grynberg, which was refused.

The suite also claims that the defendants have interfered with a vast and very significant business advantage for RSM, as well as the people of Grenada and the United States. Bowen however, has dismissed the bribery claim saying that it is only now coming and not in 2002 when Grynberg tried to get have him removed as the Energy Minister. “The allegation is totally untrue. He said that I approached him in September 2006. I have never met the man personally”, Bowen affirmed.

He said that the country is confident of winning the case and will be filing its rebuttal by November 17, 2006. “In the next eight months to one year, we believe we will successfully resolve this issue, because Grenada has a good case to terminate the contract. We are ready to do what we have to do because we were expecting the suite four months ago”, Bowen said. He indicated that the country is keen to quickly put the issue behind it and move speedily to explore and develop its oil and gas reserves.