Court awards American businessman $275,000 monthly allowance
AMERICAN businessman, Royden Keith Riettie, whose assets were frozen in the wake of a financial dispute involving Century Corporation Limited, the National Investment Bank of Jamaica (NIBJ), himself and his student wife, is to be allowed $275,000 per month to live on, Supreme Court judge, F A Smith has ruled.
The allowance, which was granted in response to Riettie’s application for a variance of the mareva injunction requested by the NIBJ, was less than the $316,000 (US$6,000) he had bargained for.
Additionally, he didn’t get the $6 million he wanted for the purpose of developing farm lands in Old Harbour, St Catherime to set up an ornamental fish farm.
But he did get $500,000 to pay his lawyers, who are preparing to contest the $39.4-million claim that the NIBJ filed against the Rietties and Century last year in March for failing to make good on a $20-million loan they obtained from the development bank in April 1997.
NIBJ, in its claim, explained that it arrived at the $39,422,739.73 by applying interest at 26.5 per cent per annum from April 21, 1997, when the loan agreement was signed, to March 9 last year (a week before the writ was filed).
According to Riettie, he needed the money to pay his bills, support his wife, Lana, who is totally dependent on him, and fulfil his debts to two American institutions, Washington Mutual and the First Union National Bank.