WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A PROMINENT LAWYER GIVES CARELESS LEGAL ADVICE THAT CAUSES INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE TO BE PRODUCED AGAINST HIS CLIENT AND OTHER BAD ACTORS?

This is prominent Saint Lucia lawyer, PETER I. FOSTER, who represents his country's ruling Saint Lucia Labour Party, as well as its Prime Minister PHILIP PIERRE, and Deputy PM ERNEST HILAIRE. When engaged as counsel for the former Prime Minister of Saint Kitts & Nevis, TIMOTHY HARRIS, attorney Foster recommended that he file a Defamation suit against MSR Media & its Director, PHILIPPE MARTINEZ, after Mr. Martinez alleged massive and rampant fraud, money laundering and corruption in the SKN Citizenship by Investment (CBI/CIP) program; it was thereafter brought in High Court in Basseterre, the country's capital, based upon his urging.

What Mr. Foster did not know, because he neglected to conduct legal research, in advance, into all aspects of the advice he gave Harris to bring a Defamation action in an international case against an American citizen and his company, in a Saint Kitts court, were the consequences of that advice. Had he done so diligently, he would have quickly learned that American Federal law allows its citizens, when sued in a foreign jurisdiction, access to Discovery within the United States, under § 1782 and Mr. Martinez' counsel was able to subpoena bank records, involving millions of dollars, reportedly incriminating Harris and a host of other individuals and entities allegedly involved in the criminal conduct their client had publicly reported on in Saint Kitts and Saint Lucia. Bank of America, the leading US correspondent bank for Caribbean CBI accounts, when subpoenaed, at first delivered a large number of incriminating records. Subsequent to the closing of the RICO case, Bank of America in 2025 then released all records of transactions of other CBI countries, because some of the subpoenaed companies did business in Dominica, Saint Lucia and Grenada. Some of that evidence is now understood to be included in a new civil action which our sources say will be filed in the near future.

As a young first-year law student, I was taught early on that an attorney's failure to research legal authorities before taking any action on behalf of a client constitutes gross negligence. I am not qualified to render an opinion as to whether Foster's failure to conduct sufficient research constituted professional negligence, otherwise known as malpractice, for those are questions of fact and issues of Saint Lucian law best handled by a court of competent jurisdiction over such matters, and such an action would fall to the individuals and entities whose American bank records were obtained through subpoena by Mr. Martinez.

The full impact of the release of those massive bank records upon the parties whose accounts were involved, as well as of the CBI/CIP industry itself, have not yet been fully felt, but we believe that the reason it occurred should be told, and so that accountability is assigned. When the complete history of the economic citizenship industry is told, this event will definitely be seen as a major turning point in its development.

We attempted to obtain Mr. Foster's comments in this story, but he has failed to respond to our requests to his office; we even reached out to him at his new residence in Atlanta, as apparently, he has relocated to the United States, but he did not reply to our message there.