Posted: Thursday, January 12, 2017. 8:25 a.m. CST.
By BBN Staff: Yesterday the Government of Belize issued a press release in response to statements made by the opposition People’s United Party (PUP) regarding arbitration settlements in US courts.
“The Office of the Prime Minister is astounded by the statement made by the People’s United Party (PUP) on the denial by the United States Supreme Court of the Government of Belize’s petition for a review of lower court judgments in three cases,” the release begins by saying.
In its release, the government explains that the cases upheld arbitration awards against Belize procured by NEWCO, Belize Social Development Limited (BSDL) and BCB Holdings Limited. BSDL and BCB are Ashcroft companies, and GOB says the arbitration awards they received were because of the PUP Accommodation Agreement given to BSDL, and the PUP Settlement Deed given to BCB.
According to GOB, those awards are unenforceable in Belize since its highest court, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), has ruled that the PUP agreements on which they are based are scandalous, outrageous and utterly illegal. NEWCO is a company to which the PUP Government gave the contract to manage the Philip Goldson International Airport. The PUP then shafted NEWCO and took away the contract to give it instead to Musas, Courtenays and others of their friends and families, GOB stated.
In an attempt to defend the decisions of the current administration, the release informs that all three awards which the UDP Administration on behalf of the people has tried to resist, are born of PUP cronyism, corruption and betrayal.
“Yet the PUP now gloats over the fact that US courts have upheld these awards that are the legacy of their unconstitutional and unbridled hustling and self-enrichment, ” it states.
The document ends by stating that the government makes clear that while the US courts have upheld the awards, those courts have no authority to overrule the CCJ and certainly the Ashcroft companies can never collect on those awards in Belize. Accordingly, the Government of Belize under the current administration, refuses to subject the Belizean people to this monstrosity of the PUP’s making, and has no intention of paying a penny of these Ashcroft awards, GOB says.
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