Allen & Overy, attorneys for Michael Ashcroft’s Hayward Charitable Trust and Dunkeld International Investments Limited, have told the Government of Belize that if the dispute over Government’s takeover of Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL) is not amicably resolved, they would submit the dispute for international arbitration under UN rules.
While the name Hayward Charitable Trust is known through claims that it indirectly owned 70% of BTL at the time of the takeover, the name Dunkeld International Investments Limited is reportedly new to even the Government of Belize.
In a letter dated August 27, 2009, the attorneys cite an international treaty – the Agreement between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of Belize for the Promotion and Protection of Investments dated April 30, 1982.
The attorneys tell Prime Minister Dean Barrow, Minister of Finance, and Attorney General Wilfred Elrington, that the government takeover of BTL was a “flagrant breach” of GOB’s treaty obligations to “qualified investors.”
It goes on to claim that even though the amendments to the Belize Telecommunications Act, passed into law on August 27, speak of “reasonable compensation” – the provisions are “patently inadequate and a clear breach of our clients’ rights under” the UK-Belize treaty.
GOB, said the attorneys, is bound under the treaty to encourage and create favorable conditions for UK and Turks and Caicos nationals to invest in its territories, to accord investments fair and equitable treatment, and not to impair them by unreasonable and discriminatory measures.
The letter closes by telling GOB: “Please therefore treat this letter as formal notification of a claim…” pursuant to the treaty. It added that, “Our clients remain willing to seek amicable settlement of the dispute as contemplated by the UK-Belize [treaty]… Should it prove necessary, please also let us know in due course which of the three means of international arbitration you propose for this dispute.”
Failing agreement, said the UK law firm, they would submit the dispute to international arbitration under the rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law.
Legal advisor in the Ministry of Finance Gian Ghandi had told our newspaper when Hayward first spoke of international arbitration that he does not think that the international investment treaty could be invoked, because GOB complied with the law and has properly set out provisions to compensate the Ashcroft companies that had held shares in BTL.
Secondly, Ghandi said that he had no idea who Hayward really is, because the company had been hiding its true identity.
Now, GOB has been confronted with another mystery company – Dunkeld International Investments Limited.