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23. The inspection began 15th October 1990 and was conducted on my behalf by
Mr Krishnan and Ms Shirley Huang of M/s Johnson Walsh. As Mr Krishnan states
in Paragraphs 6-10 of his Affidavit, BBMB had identified at the outset of the
inspection by reference to Serial Numbers in "CHA 1" those documents which it
was making available for the inspection. As the inspection progressed, Mr
Krishnan and Ms Huang found addition documents listed at "CHA 1" but which
BBMB had not accounted for on the first day. The documents which have been
made available for inspection are annotated at Pages 44-260 of "AK 1".
24.
My lawyers were informed by BBMR that the remaining documents had been taken by various departments over the years following the 1986 inspection and
were untraceable. Mr Krishnan wrote to BBMB on 19th October 1990 (Pages 23-24,"AK 2") confirming that 65% of the 5,439 documents and/or files in "CHA
1" were unavailable for inspection. BBMB does not deny this in its reply of
19th October. It merely states it was trying "its utmost" to locate the
missing documents and that "the document would be made available to you as
soon as it can be located".
25. I have little confidence in this statement. My lawyers have been
corresponding with BBMB in respect of an inspection of its documents since the
early part of 1989. On 10th September 1990, Mr Cohen was assured that the
"CHA 1" documents would be available for his inspection if he obtained a
Court Order. On 25th September BBMB was served with the order it had invited
us to obtain. In the circumstances, it was fully expected that BBMB would
have produced all the "CHA 1" documents. When the Court on 9th October
dismissed BBMB's application to set aside its earlier order, it granted an
extension of time to BBMB to consider an appeal until 15th October. Since
then, BBMB'S efforts to trace what it acknowledged was a very substantial
number of missing documents have not produced any further documents. In this
regard I again refer to Mr Krishnan's letter of 19th October (Page 24 "AK 2′′)
in which he requests BBMB's "full
BBMB's "full co-operation" in ensuring that all the
missing documents were produced for inspection on or before Tuesday 23rd
October 1990.
THE RELEVANCE OF THE MISSING DOCUMENTS.
26. So much time has passed that I cannot be expected to recall decisions
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