The Court of Appeal was scheduled to hand down a ruling in the constitutional challenge to the Barrow administration’s nationalization of Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL) last week, and Amandala has been advised that while the court, which last sat in March, will resume on June 9, 2014, it is likely that the long-awaited ruling will be delivered before the next session of the Court of Appeal.

On Thursday, the BTL Employees Trust, an Ashcroft-affiliated company which held shares in BTL when it was nationalized, issued a statement complaining of the long delay in the ruling.

The Trust contends that it has a claim against the Government of Belize for the value of its former investment in Sunshine Holdings Limited (nationalized by the Government on 25/8/09) to the tune of $111 million dollars for 11.1 million shares it held in BTL.

The Trust said that the case against the nationalization, which is also being challenged by British Caribbean Bank (BCB), was argued back in October 2012 and in October the following year, the Caribbean Court of Justice—which advises that judgments should be handed down within three months—had signaled the intent of the Court of Appeal to deliver judgment that same month. It noted that the Court of Appeal sat in March 2014, but the judgment was still not delivered, going on 6 months after that expected date of delivery.

The Trust said that the parties were later told that the decision would be handed down on Thursday, April 10, 2014, but they were advised the day before that the judgment would again not be delivered.

“This long judicial delay is against the backdrop that the Telemedia shares were first acquired almost five years ago, in 2009. The first Court of Appeal decision in June 2011, declaring the nationalizations unconstitutional and illegal was neutered by a defiant government that simply refused to obey the judgment and re-nationalized the companies with a second round of legislation,” the release issued by the BTL Employees Trust said.

It said that it is almost five years since the Government took control of BTL, and the Trust said that with no compensation having been paid “massive interest is accruing… which Belizean taxpayers will have to pay.”