A Star Lawyer Was Ordered to Repay $111 Million Over a Government Property Deal

• Harold Brady brokered a deal involving a former government minister
• Cabinet had approved the property sale back in 2010
• A $21.5 million outstanding balance sat unresolved for years
• The GLC ordered $111 million in restitution and barred him from practice

Prominent deal broker and attorney Harold Brady was struck off the roll of practising attorneys and ordered by the General Legal Council to pay just over $111 million in restitution to the Factories Corporation of Jamaica, over a property deal involving former government minister Dr Neville Gallimore. They have taken from me what they gave to me, but what I have they can’t take from me, Brady told the Sunday Gleaner, echoing his own earlier public defiance at the Dudus-Manatt Commission of Enquiry.

The underlying property dispute traced back to 2011, when Gallimore started proceedings to purchase land at the corner of Marcus Garvey Drive and Industrial Terrace on behalf of a company he operated, land that housed Universal Freight Limited, also run by the Gallimore family. The Cabinet, then led by Bruce Golding, had approved the sale back in 2010, but an outstanding balance of $21.5 million to close the deal sat unresolved, with Gallimore’s lawyers eventually receiving a notice to complete making time of the essence, alongside a request for a banker’s undertaking covering the remaining sum.

The matter, referred to the General Legal Council following a probe, resulted in the Disciplinary Committee putting the brakes on Brady’s legal career entirely, adding his name to a list that, at the time, already numbered 50 lawyers barred from practising in Jamaica. Brady’s disbarment was later compounded by criminal charges: a separate Fraud Squad investigation charged him with defrauding the FCJ of over $140 million and the Jamaica Teachers’ Association Cooperative Credit Union of $4 million, allegations his attorney said mirrored the same underlying claims the GLC had already ruled on.

Brady’s fall, from a high-profile deal broker known for testifying just Not one word, sir before a parliamentary inquiry, to a disbarred attorney ordered to personally repay tens of millions over a stalled government land deal, illustrates how a single unresolved property transaction can eventually unwind an entire legal career, years after the original Cabinet approval that started it.

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