Accountant Dawkins Brown struck off
Launches legal fight with Public Accountancy Board for reinstatement
DAWKINS BROWN, the executive chairman of Dawgen Global, was struck off the list of accountants in March allegedly for professional misconduct, but he is now waging a legal battle for reinstatement that pits him against the Public Accountancy Board (PAB).
Brown, who heads the Crowe Horwath Jamaica accounting firm, contends that the tenure of the board that struck him from the roll had expired, and, therefore, the PAB had no jurisdiction to take such action.
His attorney, Hugh Wildman, said the board’s three-year term had expired from May 2019 and that the minister of finance had not appointed a new board.
The PAB members who presided over the complaint against Brown on January 28, January 30, and February 18 this year were named in his legal filings as Chairman Eric Crawford, Vice-President Garth Kiddoe, Patricia Hayle, Elizabeth Ann Jones, Veronica Warmington, Linval Freeman, Raphael Gordon, Dr Wayne Henry, Clive Nicholas, and Eric Scott.
Wildman said that Brown had filed several grounds of appeal in the Court of Appeal and that an application for a stay of the order is set for May 19.
The complaint to the PAB that led to Brown’s removal from the register of public accountants was filed by Vistra IE (Bristol) Limited, a foreign firm. The underlying issue emanated from an arrangement struck between Brown and a consulting firm in the United Kingdom called Radius (Bristol) Limited. Brown said he created a firm called Affirmed Network Jamaica Limited (ANJL) as a special-purpose vehicle to provide information technology services for a project for Radius.
He said that a dispute later developed between his company and Radius regarding the operation and the fees to be paid, which the parties agreed to settle through reconciliation.
Brown said that after a period, the key person dealing with the discussions became unresponsive; that his company concluded Radius wanted to avoid payment; and that they decided to remove all consultants from his company as their work permits had expired and he decided not to renew them.
He said that the amount outstanding was in excess of $87 million.
Then last year, Brown said that the PAB advised him that Vistra IE had filed a complaint against him regarding a refusal to transfer Affirmed Network Jamaica Limited, the company used for the special technology project.
However, the Dawgen chairman is contending that he had no previous dealings with Vistra, that ANJL is his company, and that he had no agreement to transfer his shareholding. He said he advised the PAB about the fee dispute with Radius over millions he noted as owed to him for services rendered.
Brown said the matter is a commercial dispute which he intends to pursue to recover the fees owed.
“The PAB then intervened in what is clearly a commercial dispute regarding fees,” he charged.
Efforts at comment from Vistra through their attorney Sandra Minott-Phillips were unsuccessful up to press time.
Brown charges that Vistra is trying to use the PAB to force him to transfer ANJL, “which I refused”, he said.
The Ministry of Finance, under which the PAB falls, declined to comment, saying that the matter was before the court and that the PAB was in the process of filing papers in the case. PAB Chairman Crawford could not be reached.
A win for Brown would bring into question and potentially open to challenge any other decisions made by the PAB beyond its May 2019 term.
Wildman says he will be relying on the Public Accountancy Act to make his case. The act states that a 10-member board must be appointed for three years and that the board must be gazetted.
The last gazetted board, he said, was appointed on May 2, 2016, to serve for three years to May 1, 2019.