In May of this year, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision on the Governments Acquisition of BEL, and the reacquisition of BTL. At that time, the attorneys for the former owners, the Ashcroft Alliance and Fortis Energy, promised that a vigorous appeal would be brought before the Caribbean Court of Justice.
That appeal officially began today via teleconference where the court held the first case management session. Eamon Courtenay, attorney for British Caribbean Bank and Fortis; and Godfrey Smith, attorney for Dean Boyce and the Trustees of the Employees Trust were both present, along with Nigel Hawk, the Acting Solicitor General of Belize.
There are 5 different appeals of the same case, and so the court decided to consolidate them into one big appeal matter. After the session we spoke with Godfrey Smith outside of court about the beginning of the final appeal on this case:
Godfrey Smith - Attorney for Dean Boyce/Employees Trust
"I'm sure that you aware this is the continuation of the long outstanding nationalization cases against Telemedia, the nationalization of Telemedia and Fortis. We represent Dean Boyce and the trustees of the BTL trust as you are aware. The last judgement did not go in our favor except for one portion that dealt with retro activity and the exercise here this morning was merely to obtain leave from the CCJ and to do a timetabling exercise to schedule the matter for hearing."
Daniel Ortiz
"So sir can you explain to us briefly, what might be the issues that your clients are bringing to court as to the matters ruled on at the court of appeals."
Godfrey Smith
"Essentially we maintained the position from the beginning that the acquisition of Telemedia was unconstitutional on a number of grounds. That continues to be the position and that is what will inform our appeal to the Caribbean Court of Justice."
The full hearing of this case will take place at the end of November or the beginning of December.
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