FORMER Eagle financial network boss Paul Chen-Young was yesterday successful in having the Court of Appeal reinstate a provision that the state-run Financial Sector Adjustment Company (Finsac) cover his living and legal expenses, pending the outcome of its $1.2 billion suit against him.

The payments will be retractive to June 15, 2006 when the provision was revoked by a Supreme Court justice after being put in place by another in May.

Chen-Young, who now resides in Florida, USA, had in mid-2006 obtained the order for his living and legal expenses to be met by Finsac, which had had his assets frozen as a result of the lawsuit it brought against him years earlier. But Chen-Young appealed the decision, arguing that the provision was unlawfully revoked in the Supreme Court as the Finsac suit that he eventually lost was still before the appellate court.

Yesterday the appellate court sided with Chen-Young that for the provision to be reinstated, pending the outcome of his appeal against the Finsac suit.

Attorney Ian Wilkinson told the Observer yesterday that Chen-Young was happy with the ruling. “Dr Chen-Young is relieved and pleased with the decision of the Court of Appeal to reinstate the order…,” said Wilkinson.

Chen-Young was slapped with the suit by Eagle Merchant Bank and Crown Eagle Life Insurance Company, his former companies that were taken over by Finsac during the financial sector meltdown of the mid-1990s. The suit charged that two business transactions by Chen-Young on behalf of his Ajax Investment Limited and Domville Ltd, constituted breaches of fiduciary duty, breaches of contract and negligence.

Justice Roy Anderson held in his ruling then that the breaches were in relation to the refurbishing of premises at 24-26 Grenada Crescent, New Kingston, and therefore Chen-Young and Ajax were liable to the bank in the sum of $242 million. The judge also ordered Chen-Young to pay US$9.9 million to the bank for the purchase of IBM shares in 1995 because there were

breaches, while Chen-Young and Domville were ordered to pay US$11.5 million to

Crown Eagle.

A date for the appeal is to be set by the registrar of the Court of Appeal.