 Fiji Leaks’ sources within the Fiji Rugby Union have confirmed that at a critical board meeting last month at which the fateful decision was reached to go ahead and sign a controversial 5-year sponsorship agreement with Vodafone worth an estimated $16.5m in cash, the FRU board was given supposedly impartial legal advice by Suva lawyer Ana Tuiketei – formerly of the DPP’s office. Her recommendation was to proceed with Vodafone – even though the FRU chairman and PS Finance Filimone Waqabaca had written a letter in December confirming to Digicel that their matching rights would be honoured, which they subsequently were not. That failure to honour the matching rights is now subject to court action, with the FRU position looking – in legal terms – decidedly flimsy. Crucially, it was not made clear to any of the board members present, nor was it minuted, that Tuiketei is in practice with Nazhat Shameem (as LawFiji.com) and that Shameem happens to be the wife of Vodafone CEO Aslam Khan. Tuiketei has no formal role within the FRU and it’s not clear who asked her to contribute or why. The FRU’s constitution provides for a director to be responsible for legal matters. That director is Carl Cameron-Ngoki, who had been Prime Minister's nominee to the FRU board under the 2011-2013 disastrous regime of chairman and land force commander Mosese Tikoitoga, but was elected as a board member in April last year for a second two-year term. Tuiketei does not have any obvious commercial experience that would recommend her giving such significant advice; her CV details DPP-type work and experience, covering anti-human trafficking, money laundering and fraud issues. She and former deputy DPP Ratu David Toganivalu were terminated by solicitor-general Christopher Pryde in December 2010 but LawFiji and Tuiketei remains closely connected with the regime, boasting of clients that include FICAC, the Reserve Bank, the Police, FIRCA and the Government itself. Vodafone's lawyer Suruj Sharma is also C J Patel and Fiji Sun's lawyer. It was a consequence of that meeting and particularly Tuiketei’s advice that the potentially disastrous decision to press ahead with Vodafone was reached. In the High Court on Thursday, defending their decision to sign with Vodafone, the FRU were forced to switch legal tack and for the first time argued in front of Justice Kamal Kumar that Digicel’s action should be struck off because Digicel had ignored a 30-day arbitration clause in their previous sponsorship agreement. That raised eyebrows in legal circles because the sponsorship agreement that provided for the 30-day arbitration had come to an end and there was therefore no longer any enforceable contractual commitments between the FRU and Digicel – except as it pertained to the agreed matching rights. Justice Kumar has said he will rule on February 25. |  Legal partners: Ana Tuiketei and Nazhat Shameem  FRU Board Director for sponsorships Baljeet Singh and Vodafone Fiji CEO Aslam Khan outside the Fiji High Court  Poking into our faces: The FRU’s constitution provides for a director to be responsible for legal matters. That director is Carl Cameron-Ngoki, who had been Prime Minister's nominee to the FRU board under the 2011-2013 disastrous regime of chairman and land force commander Mosese Tikoitoga, but was elected as a board member in April last year for a second two-year term.  |
Members of the 7s team wearing Vodafone-branded polo shirts in front of a Vodafone-branded backdrop at a recent morning tea. The new FRU-Vodafone contract allows Vodafone to spend up to $2.5m a year providing Vodafone-branded shirts, backdrops, ‘morning teas’ and other advertising and other marketing support as part of their supposed ‘$40m’ sponsorship package.
