A Trinidadian High Court justice has delivered a landmark ruling in a long-running investment dispute, ordering prominent local businessman and environmental advocate Gary Aboud to pay $25,000 in compensatory damages to investment adviser Lawrence Mollenthiel. The ruling, issued Monday by Justice Devindra Rampersad, also requires Aboud to cover $3,868.15 in accrued interest and a majority of Mollenthiel’s legal fees, after finding that a 2017 agreement forcing Mollenthiel to accept personal blame for a $10 million investment loss was signed under explicit duress and is legally unenforceable. Alongside dismissing the entire original lawsuit brought by Aboud, his wife Merylle Mahabir, and her sister Natalie Mahabir, the judge also ordered the three claimants to split a total $297,243.75 in court costs for the defense, with Aboud responsible for more than 79% of that sum.
The legal fight centered on losses from the now-collapsed offshore Kijani Commodity Fund, where the three claimants collectively invested more than $11 million between 2012 and 2013. Aboud contributed the largest single sum, a $10 million transfer made in February 2012. Merylle Mahabir invested a further $644,000 in 2013, while Natalie Mahabir put approximately $63,344 into the fund after an earlier investment through Friends Provident International left her with a partial shortfall.
In their original lawsuit, the three claimants argued that Mollenthiel, who runs the advisory firm Investment Designs Ltd, had misrepresented his professional credentials, framed the Kijani fund as a safe, insured vehicle capable of delivering guaranteed high returns, and improperly misdirected their investments through unagreed offshore shell companies and insurance-linked structures. They pinned full blame for the fund’s collapse and their subsequent losses on Mollenthiel’s professional negligence, and centered their claim on the 2017 agreement that purported to confirm his personal liability and commitment to compensate Aboud for his losses.
Mollenthiel has consistently denied all allegations of wrongdoing, countering that he only acted as a licensed intermediary to help clients access offshore investment products, handling only administrative paperwork, compliance checks, and onboarding logistics. He maintained that all investment decisions were made independently by the claimants, that he never controlled their invested funds or managed their portfolios, and never misrepresented Kijani as a zero-risk asset with guaranteed returns. In his counter-claim over the 2017 incident, Mollenthiel told the court he had attended a meeting at Aboud’s office expecting a neutral discussion of the dispute, only to be confronted by Aboud, a companion identified only as “Abdullah”, and other unidentified individuals. He testified that a cutlass was displayed openly on the meeting desk, explicit threats were made against him and his family, his car was blocked in the parking lot to prevent an early exit, and he was held against his will for nearly four hours until he signed the liability agreement.
Aboud refuted all claims of coercion, arguing that Mollenthiel had attended the meeting voluntarily, kept his personal mobile phone with him throughout, and was free to make calls and leave at any time. But Justice Rampersad rejected Aboud’s narrative, noting that voluntary attendance and access to a phone did not equate to free agreement to accept personal liability for the entire investment loss. The judge gave significant evidentiary weight to a message Mollenthiel sent to contacts just days after the meeting, in which he detailed the duress, threats, and unlawful detainment immediately after the incident. Rampersad also highlighted that Aboud failed to call Abdullah — a long-time personal friend who was present at the meeting and co-signed the 2017 agreement — as a witness to corroborate his version of events.
In his final assessment of the original investment claims, Rampersad found that the evidence presented did not prove Mollenthiel or his firm had wrongfully seized or retained the claimants’ funds. He also confirmed that all formal investment documents provided to the claimants explicitly outlined the insurance-linked investment structure and included standard warnings about the inherent risks of offshore investing. Having upheld Mollenthiel’s account of the 2017 meeting as the most credible, the judge invalidated the liability agreement and ruled in the investment adviser’s favor on all counts.
