Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL) scored a victory at the end of arbitration proceedings in the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) in March, which awarded the company $38.5 million in damages.
It was a victory won hands down, as the company was unchallenged in the proceedings. But now that the arbitration award has been won by BTL, the fight is on home turf, where BTL is facing a string of legal challenges from the Dean Barrow administration, the Public Utilities Commission and now a group of activists who had challenged similar agreements made by the former administration of Said Musa, with BTL’s sister company, the Belize Bank.
On Monday, the Association of Concerned Belizeans (ACB) and private sector Senator, Godwin Hulse, represented by Senior Counsel Lois Young, appeared in the courtroom of Justice John Muria in preliminary proceedings for a suit filed earlier this month against the Attorney General of Belize as first defendant, and Belize Telemedia Limited as second defendant.
Hulse and the ACB are asking the Supreme Court to declare the disputed accommodation agreements null and void, because they violate fundamental Belize law, including the Belize Constitution.
The Government of Belize had already won a temporary injunction in the Supreme Court from Justice Samuel Awich, giving legal support to Government’s decision not to pay a penny on the accommodation award agreed by the Said Musa administration.
Separately, the Public Utilities Commission filed suit, asking for the court to quash the agreements on the claim that they violate both the Public Utilities Commission Act and the Telecommunications Act.
Now, Senator Godwin Hulse and the ACB have gone to the court, asking for a set of declarations regarding the Telemedia agreements.
Speaking with Amandala today, Senator Hulse said they want the court to declare that the accommodation agreement is illegal and void on the basis that it allows the set-off of business, income tax, and other government revenues, which, he contends, is illegal and contravenes the Income and Business Tax Act, and it allows BTL to get Customs duties waivers, and allows BTL to set off its tax payments against an assumed minimum rate of return [of 15%], which, he says, violates the Constitution and the Business Tax Act.
The agreements, said Hulse, also seek to have Telemedia monopolize telecommunications business, and violate the PUC and BTL Acts.
There were no hearings on Monday, and Telemedia attorney, Eamon Courtenay, SC, successfully argued for an adjournment. The hearing has now been set for Tuesday, May 5.
ACB and Hulse are asking the court to restrain the Government, through the Attorney General, from making any concession on the accommodation agreement.
In regard to the claimants’ other high-profile suit, in which they challenge the Government agreements under the Musa administration to guarantee and pay loans for Universal Health Services (now Belize Healthcare Partners), the parties are awaiting the judgment of Justice Minnet Hafiz.
Hulse contends that all government monies must be deposited into the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and Government has no authority, except by passing a separate law in Parliament, to grant any such concessions to a private entity, as Musa did in the case of BTL.
For its part, BTL continues to hold its ground, insisting, in line with LCIA rulings, that the Government of Belize is legally bound to meet its commitments set out in the accommodation agreement.
The legal disputes are a part of a larger war between the Barrow administration and the Ashcroft group of companies, highly favored under the former Musa administration, which secretly granted a series of contracts to Michael Ashcroft’s highly lucrative phone company and bank.
On Wednesday, at a news conference with the media, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Hon. Dean Barrow, re-asserted his government’s position that they would resist the LCIA ruling.
“Cabinet has basically taken a decision that that’s it. We will simply defend this country’s interest in a way now that will see us resist any and all efforts to enforce that order,” Barrow told the media.