Fresh documents have been filed in a New York court giving details of the
connection between Grenada's Deputy Prime Minister, Gregory Bowen and a
group of questionable Russian oil executives.
The documents were field as part of a ruling from a judge in which he ordered Bowen to face trial in the United States with four Russians as part of a dispute with american oil tycoon, Jack Grynberg.
Minister Bowen had earlier claimed victory in the case on the grounds that Grynberg and his company, RSM Production Corporation had filed the suit out of time.
American attorney, Daniel Abrams in keeping with the court order filed the suit on Monday in court to give effect to the case against the Number Two Man in St. George's and Russians, Mikhail Fridman, Len Blavatnik, Lev Korchagin and Lev Model.
Following are excerpts from the law suit:
Defendant Gregory Bowen is a key co-conspirator in as much as he was a recipient of bribe monies provided directly, and in some cases indirectly, from the other Defendants.
Bowen is and at all relevant times was Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Grenada, as well as Grenada's Minister of Energy.
Defendant Lev Model is a former Russian National who is a resident of Brooklyn, New York. He has on information and belief split his time in recent years between Grenada, New York, New Jersey and Ireland. Mr. Model is a Director of Global Petroleum Group, Ltd. His address in Grenada is Westerhall, St. David's, Grenada.
On information and belief, Mr. Model is the Chairman of Global Petroleum Group, Ltd. Mr. Model is presently in default in this case for failing to respond to the Second Amended Complaint despite being duly served.
In September 1996, in Grenada, Gregory Bowen, who is Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Grenada's Energy affairs, advised Jack Grynberg that he expected significant bribe payments from RSM and Grynberg in order for RSM and Grynberg to do business in Grenada.
After the refusal of RSM and Grynberg to pay bribes to Bowen, Bowen obstructed, harassed and intimidated RSM and Grynberg in their efforts to explore, develop and produce Grenada's oil and natural gas resources, including, but not limited to rescinding the Special Envoy to Venezuela status of Jack Grynberg, which he was using to attempt to resolve boundary disputes between Grenada and Venezuela, refusing to participate in a case in the International Court of Justice between Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago to resolve the undetermined boundaries, filed at great expense by RSM, which boundaries Grynberg successfully resolved with Trinidad and Tobago, to the benefit of Grenada, granting illegal permission to other parties to perform seismic work on exclusive license area of the Plaintiffs, and taking no steps to preserve Grenada's United Nations seismic data after Grynberg offered to preserve and reprocess the data at no cost to the Grenadian government, with a copy to be delivered free of charge to Grenada.
That seismic data, which was stored in an open garage in Barbados, is now destroyed due to humidity.
RSM also spent over $170,000 to litigate in Federal District Court against Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the Venezuela government oil company to prevent PDVSA from trespassing in a manner which violated RSM's Grenadian offshore exclusive exploration and development contract.
RSM at its own expense has utilised its technical, scientific and economic knowledge to resolve boundary disputes in spite of obstacles created by Gregory Bowen.
RSM is additionally incurring the large costs of arbitration with Grenada before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) of the World Bank in London, England, to remove these artificial, bogus and fraudulent obstacles created by Bowen.
Defendants have conspired to interfere with the existing Petroleum Agreement between RSM and Grenada and the issuance of the oil and natural gas exploration, development and production license by Grenada to RSM, pursuant to an active, valid and exclusive contract agreement, with the issuance being a mere formality.
Defendants, each in their own way, are attempting and have attempted to profit from the vast potential for exploration, development and production of Grenada's oil and natural gas, in total disregard and in contempt for Plaintiffs' contractual rights, pursuant to the existing exclusive RSM Petroleum Agreement.
These efforts are in direct violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the 1997 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development ("OECD") Convention on Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.
These actions are also in contravention of Transparency International's ongoing efforts to lead a global coalition against corruption.
