Prime Minister Bruce Golding said on May 17 that the US firm

[Karl]

Harold Brady & Company was the contact for the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in its engagement with Manatt and handed over the US$50,000 which the party admitted it paid to the US law firm.


In admitting the relationship, Prime Minister Bruce Golding said on May 17 that the US firm was engaged by the JLP, through Brady, to secure assistance in resolving the stalemate caused by the extradition request for Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.

[Source:
Online Gleaner - Money sent to California bank

Published: Friday | July 16, 2010 ]

[Muadib]

Heh, heh...

And.. ?

[Karl]

..and..

Heh, heh...

And.. ?

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The additional payment was made one month after Golding had claimed that the relationship between the party and the law firm had ended.
This disclosure - first reported by the US publication Am Law Daily - triggered more calls for the Government to come clean on the Manatt issue, with speculation rife about what details were omitted by the prime minister in his May 17 revelation to the nation.

Ties severed
But yesterday, the JLP claimed it had no contractual relationship with either Manatt, Phelps & Phillips or Harold Brady & Company since the effective termination of those arrangements.

"Our understanding is that a payment was made by Mr Harold Brady as part of the termination of the contract. The contract was terminated in February, but as part of the contractual obligation, they had to negotiate a final payment. Mr Brady made it, but my understanding is that he made it from his own funds. It has nothing to do with the party," Golding said yesterday.

Similarly, the JLP, in a statement, said, "The party did not in any way advance to Harold Brady & Company any funds or facilitate Harold Brady & Co in making this recently disclosed payment of US$15,000.

"We have since confirmed that this payment was made directly by Harold Brady & Company as a final payment for the commercial obligations that existed as a result of the termination of the contract for services and which fell to the account of Harold Brady & Company," added the JLP in a statement issued hours after Information Minister Daryl Vaz faced journalists at the weekly post-Cabinet media briefing.

Vaz was adamant that the payment was from a Jamaican law firm to US law firm and in no way related to either the Government or the JLP.
But he could not say what if any action would be taken against either firm for misrepresenting the payment as coming from the Government of Jamaica.

[Source: Jamaica Gleaner online - Brady paid off Manatt, says JLP

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100716/lead/lead3.html ]

[Karl]

..and...Goverment spokesperson for the JLP, Minister Vaz

News
Gov't says US$15,000 to Manatt a transaction between lawyers
Friday, July 16, 2010

GOVERNMENT yesterday reiterated its position that it had no dealings with United States law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, and that the additional US$15,000 paid to the firm was strictly a transaction between lawyers representing the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and those of Manatt, which was hired by the party to lobby the US Government on extradition matters.

Minister of Information Daryl Vaz again sought to distance his administration from Manatt, whose hiring was sanctioned by JLP leader and prime minister Bruce Golding after the US requested the extradition of former West Kingston strongman Christopher 'Dudus' Coke last August.
"Neither the Government nor the Jamaica Labour Party either paid or solicited any funds further than the US$50,000 which was acknowledged was paid by the party," Vaz said at the post-Cabinet press briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister yesterday.

He was responding to questions about the US$15,000-payment to Manatt stated in a supplemental filing to the US Justice Department, dated June 30.

The information minister indicated that the payment was for an early termination of the contract between Manatt and the party.

"Based on the preliminary information that I have, I surmise that the US$15,000 was paid from attorney to attorney in relation to commercial obligations, based on the termination of the contract which was directed by the party based on the history, which we all know," Vaz said.

While stating that the Government was committed to fighting corruption, Vaz also dismissed the call by the Opposition People's National Party (PNP) for a commission of enquiry into the matter.


Source: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/...awyers_7803840