Cabinet announced on Wednesday, December 14, 2005, that it had endorsed the decision of the Prime Minister to make no further claims against the private persons who owned and operated the Belize Companies Registry and the Belize Intellectual Property Office. Not so, says the BCCI.

The business organization this week filed an application with the Supreme Court, calling on the court to quash the Cabinet decision. It is furthermore calling on the court to order the Government of Belize to recover all revenues, including stamp duties.

The action, filed on Tuesday by attorney Lois Young, SC, lists as defendants the Prime Minister and Ministry of Finance, the Cabinet, the Commissioners of Stamps, as well as the Attorney General?s Ministry.

The BCCI contends that even if the Government of Belize decided to privatize the Registry, it had no right to permit a private entity to hold on to the stamp duties. The legal argument is that the stamp duties remain a debt to the Government of Belize and must be paid in.

Under the privatization deal, the Belize Intellectual Property Office received what amounted to 80% of government revenues for the Belize Companies Registry, and Government only 20%.

To date, there has been no report of exactly how much money went into private hands that would have otherwise gone to GOB, though it is believed to be in the millions.

The case that had brought the whole affair to light was Government?s decision to pay $2.25 million in stamp duties for the sale of shares in the Belize Telecommunications Limited to Sunshine Holdings, a Michael Ashcroft affiliate.

On October 19, 2005, the Government announced that it had terminated the agreements.

Government later announced that the full $2.25 million had been refunded, but that it would not make any further claims against BELIPO.

At the Monday, November 14, 2005 sitting of the Senate, Senator Godwin Hulse, who represents the BCCI, called for investigation into the Registry deal.

Hulse said that three things need to happen: (1) If the Companies Registry was acting outside of the law, we need to get back the money that they had collected since privatization in 2003; (2) If the then Attorney General [who is a lawyer] at the time signed the agreement knowing that it was not legal, he needs to be disciplined; and (3) if the legal counsel in the Ministry of Finance gave his O.K., he also needs to be disciplined, because it is the public servants in this country that are supposed to put the brakes on the politicians.

Senator Hulse insisted that all the monies the Registry collected since 2003, which would have ordinarily gone to GOB, should be refunded.

BCCI?s president, Arturo ?Tux? Vasquez, and general manager, Kevin Herrera, are presently out of the country.