Privy Council provides authoritative guidance on the remuneration of insolvency officeholders in substantial Trinidad liquidation

On 16 September 2025, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council issued its Judgment in respect of an appeal concerning the remuneration of the liquidators of CL Financial, a group of companies subject to a highly complex and long-running compulsory liquidation in Trinidad and Tobago. The Judgment contains an extensive survey of the law and practice applicable to the time-based remuneration of liquidators, derived from the leading Commonwealth jurisdictions, and will be of interest to those advising insolvency officeholders on issues relating to the fixing of their remuneration by the court.

The appeal arose from a decision of the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago to overturn the approval of a remuneration application by the liquidation judge, essentially on the grounds that the judge had not had sufficient information on which to give his approval and should have conducted a line-by-line analysis of the time spent by the liquidators. The Government of Trinidad and Tobago, the principal creditor in the liquidation, had contested the application on these and a large number of other grounds.

Having set out the applicable principles derived from the Commonwealth jurisprudence, Lord Richards, giving the Board’s Judgment, agreed that the judge should have required more detailed information before approving the application, but held to be unjustified the Court of Appeal’s requirement that a judge considering such an application must examine it “line-by-line”. Many of the other objections to the application advanced by the Government were also rejected, and the application was remitted to the judge for reconsideration.

The Judgment provides authoritative guidance to any officeholder when making a remuneration application, particularly those appointed in respect of insolvencies in countries with a right of final appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, on the level of detail that will be required by the court before approving the application.

Ben Valentin KC appeared with Fyard Hosein SC and Sasha Bridgemohansingh, instructed by Lex Caribbean and Sinclair Gibson LLP, for the Appellant Company and its Liquidators.

The Judgment can be found here.