Aqualectra and Casperson to make arrangements again

June 04, 2012 10:48 AM

WILLEMSTAD - According to the judge, it’s in the interest of Anthon Casperson and Aqualectra that both parties make arrangements for Casperson’s dismissal at the utility company. This appeared today from the judge’s ruling in the basic procedure that Casperson had instituted against his former employer.

The judge had already pressed for an arrangement in April. However, the parties never sat down at the negotiation table.The judge will address the parties again on Monday, June 18th when he is to hear their thoughts on an arrangement. The judge still demands additional information on four accusations that were produced. As one already feared during the oral pleadings, the fact finding will take some doing. According to the judge, one cannot easily predict to which conclusion that fact finding will lead.

The accusations on which the judge requests additional information regards the emergency power units and the insufficient production capacity of Aqualectra, the costs involved regarding medical dispatching of patients to Columbia by subsidiary Geus, the lacking administration and ICT-services, the substantial collection arrears, the net and leak loss and the reversal of the construction plans for a new main office.
 
Aqualectra accuses Casperson of having unnecessarily renewed the rental contract of half of the emergency power units. According to Casperson, the peak demand in 2011 couldn’t have been met without the emergency power units. Moreover, the then Board of Commissioners had already given him permission to renew the contract. The judge won’t access this accusation until after expert information on technical and financial aspects.N

ew investigation
 
The judge also argues for a (renewed) expert investigation into the costs that Geus had made for medical treatments of the personnel. According to the judge, the question is whether there had been any abuses. Aqualectra maintains this is the case and refers to the final report Quick Scan USBZ that was performed by attorney’s office FCW Legal, assisted by an unknown ‘certified fraud examiner’. According to the judge, one cannot preclude that the abuses, on which this report is based, are incorrect or not entirely correct. Neither is it clear whether Casperson can be personally blamed for the alleged abuses.
 
The judge requests further details on the lack of quality of the administration and the ICT-services, the status of the consolidated annual reports of the past years, and on the extent of the collection arrears in the last three years. Curaçao Airport Partners (CAP) never received an electricity bill between 2006 and 2011. This mistake was discovered as late as last year. This mistake had cost the utility company more than 1 million guilders. The judge wants to know if the ‘CAP affair’ is an exceptional case.

Round-up
 
In the interlocutory judgment today, the judge stated one may assume there’s a round-up for Casperson, “certainly considering the circumstance that he needed written approval from a member of the Board of Commissioners before making payments and purchases amounting to 50 guilders or more. Such a rigorous curtailment of administrative authority isn’t consonant with the responsible position of the CEO of a large company such as Aqualectra.” The former CEO of Aqualectra demands compensation. He feels his honor and good name have been tarnished. He also stated that the termination of his agreement is invalid or unlawful. The judge disputes the latter. The issue, according to the judge, is whether the grounds produced by Aqualectra for terminating the agreement are actually correct, and if this is the case, whether those grounds are serious enough to justify the termination. The key question is whether Casperson as responsible CEO had failed to the extent that continuation of the agreement wasn’t in the interest of Aqualectra.