A first hearing is scheduled for tomorrow into the ATL Group Pension Funds Trustees Nominee Limited challenge of an Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT) ruling in favour of former ATL executive Catherine Barber.

Justice Bryan Sykes is to hear the matter in chambers at the Supreme Court.

Sykes had, in October, granted the fund leave to apply for judic ial review to quash the IDT decision of September 23 that Barber was unjustifiably dismissed and awarded her reinstatement or 260 weeks’ emoluments at the current rate.

Barber had taken the company to the IDT, claiming that she was unjustly dismissed as general manager of the fund. However, the company is contending that Barber’s dismissal was lawful and just.

Barber was dismissed over the surplus distribution issue for which she faced a criminal trial, but was acquitted in 2014.

However, on September 30, the company applied to the Supreme Court to challenge the IDT’s decision. The application was heard by Justice Sykes over several sittings commencing on October 12.

Among the grounds argued by the company were that the tribunal failed to consider relevant evidence that was brought before it, misconstrued relevant evidence, and asked itself the wrong questions in its application of the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act and Labour Relations Code.

Additionally, the company contended that the IDT acted irrationally in ordering that Barber be compensated in the amount equivalent to 260 weeks’ total emoluments.

In June, during the IDT hearings, Barber admitted under cross-examination by attorney Hugh Wildman that she had in fact backdated letters purporting to give permission for the distribution of surpluses from the ATL pension fund.

She said she backdated the letters, which made it appear that the founder of Gorstew Limited had given permission for the distribution of billions of dollars in surplus for the years 1998, 2001 and 2004. Questioned further, she said she didn’t backdate the letter in relation to the valuation for the year 2008.

Barber further testified that no one had advised or instructed her to backdate the letters, and said she did it after attorney-at-law Lynda Mair advised her that consent from Gorstew for the distribution of surplus needed to have been in writing.

Barber had taken the company to the IDT before she and Patrick Lynch, the former chairman of the ATL Group Pension Scheme; and Dr Jeffery Pyne, former managing director of Gorstew Ltd, were acquitted of several counts of fraud in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court in June 2014 in relation to the distribution.

The three were acquitted after Senior Resident Magistrate Lorna Shelly Williams upheld a no-case submission made by their attorneys. The magistrate, however, ruled that no consent was given for the three to effect the distribution of $1.7 billion in pension fund surplus covering the years 1998, 2002, 2005, and 2008.

They were alleged to have conspired to forge and backdate four letters to deceive that consent was given.

During the IDT hearing, Barber had also come under pressure over conflict of interest issues regarding an apartment that Lynch and his wife wanted to purchase.

Barber disagreed that there was a conflict of interest in the handling of the apartment issue. She also said that she wasn’t involved in a clandestine agreement to sell Lynch and his wife the apartment, which was an asset of the company.

She said she didn’t inform a meeting of the board of trustees, of which Lynch was then the chairman, that he had signed a sales agreement and paid a deposit and further payment towards the purchase of the apartment.

At another point during the cross-examination, Wildman suggested to Barber that she had misled the board in relation to the last valuation of the apartment located in Norbrook, St Andrew, but Barber said she didn’t. Barber had advised the board that there was a valuation for the apartment done in 2006 when there was no such valuation — the last one having been done in 2003.

Barber agreed that the matter of disposing of the company’s assets was important and that such an issue should be brought to the board of trustees. She gave evidence that it was brought to the attention of a board meeting in September 2007. However, minutes of the meeting to which Barber signed off on didn’t reflect this.

She admitted also that she didn’t bring to the attention of the board that Lynch had submitted a cheque to her and that a lawyer was instructed to prepare the sales agreement for the apartment. She said she had returned the cheque to Lynch and not the lawyer who had prepared the sales agreement and cheque from Lynch.