What will Michael Ashcroft do next? That’s what everyone has
been asking. The British Billionaire has been huffing and puffing – but
in real terms he hasn’t done much beyond threatening to bring more and
bigger lawsuits. Today we caught the Prime Minister leaving a morning show and
asked him, does the threat of sustained litigation cause him great worry?
Jules Vasquez,
“The central threat has been that there will in fact be more litigation
and that they will invoke the Belize-UK investment treaty and that all these
various battlements await the government of Belize.”
Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
“Well I want to show how much this is not personal for us. Despite
all the threats we will do nothing for example to affect Belize Bank, nothing
to affect any of his other enterprises in this country. This is principally
and to the extent of certainly legislative action only about Telemedia. But
if we look at some of the details of the threats he is issuing, how will he
invoke the Belize-UK Protection of Investment Treaty when he keeps assuring
us that all these trusts are Belizean charities. That can only be invoked if
the shareholders whose property has been appropriated are in fact nationals
of the United Kingdom. Was he not telling us the truth when he said that these
are all registered entities in Belize, set up for the purposes of doing well
by the people of Belize? I don’t think that he can go anywhere in terms
of any constitutional challenge. I believe that ultimately he will be limited
to the battle over compensation which is an inevitable and necessary part of
the whole process.”
Jules Vasquez,
“So you are not alarmed then by the threat of more litigation?”
Hon. Dean Barrow,
“Not at all.”
Jules Vasquez,
“But it disserves your central purpose in it which was to dispose of litigation.
Iif the litigator, the man who negotiates by litigation is saying that he will
bring more litigation and we know he can bring any amount.”
Hon. Dean Barrow,
“No man, the central purpose was to dispose of Telemedia litigation
on the basis of the Accommodation Agreement. That certainly is at an end, even
he has had to concede that this action and the repudiation by the government
of the accommodation agreement puts that to rest. Telemedia can’t any
longer sue the government. In so far as Michael Ashcroft and his other entities
are concerned, again I don’t want to have him provoke me into saying that
if it is war he wants, then bring it on. I am saying that we are prepared to
live and let live and of course we will take care of business. We will defend
ourselves and I hope and expect that the threats aren’t going to prove
in the result as dire as he is making them sound now.”
Of course, in the past, Ashcroft didn’t just threaten legal action;
he did it – fighting government for BTL’s rights under the accommodation
agreement in every court from Belize to Britain. He retained the very best Belizean
Senior Counsel and British Queen’s Counsel to do so, and at the end of
the day, rate-payers are the ones who footed the bills. According to BTL’s
accounts, in 2007 those legal bills were 7.5 million dollars.
In a related note, one of those former attorneys – soon to be
PUP Senator Eamon Courtenay – told Channel 5 on Tuesday that Channel 7
owner and BTL Chairman Net Vasquez has “started up” a company that
intends to offer telephone services – implying that there was some conflict
of interest. There is none because that is untrue. To set the record straight:
Net Vasquez owns no such shares; 7News Director Jules Vasquez does own a single
share in a Company that is an Internet Service Provider. That company
has no telephone license. That it wishes to offer VOIP and other
telecommunication services in its own right is well known and duly acknowledged.
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