While the Government of Belize is struggling to regain its step after paying out 67 million US to the Ashcroft Alliance for BTL, another huge compensation payout for the Alliance is on deck. And, this time, government isn't even thinking about a settlement; it's getting ready to go all the way to the United States Supreme Court to challenge the ruling.
Why the US Supreme Court? Well, that's because the compensation judgment came out of the US court for the District of Columbia. That Court enforced a Final Award payment of equivalent of $18.5 million US dollars, plus interest - on which a staggering 17% interest has been compounding monthly since 2012. The award is for one of those Ashcroft Companies with a cute name, Belize Social Development Limited, registered in the British Virgin Islands. We say "cute" because the extent of BSDL's social involvement is as a legal backstop for the notorious, and apparently deathless, Accommodation Agreement.
When the Ashcroft Alliance got an award from the London Court of Arbitration for the Barrow administration's breaches of the Accommodation Agreement, it left it to BDSL - a US Virgin Islands registered Company to enforce it.
It's making news right now in the US because the investor market expects that BDSL is expecting to get a windfall payment off Belize's Bank, and that has the stock of Ashcroft's BCB Holdings trading up.
And it's also news because Belize's attorney's have applied to the US supreme Court to block payment issued by the lower court. Though very few cases are heard by the US Supreme Court, the Government of Belize's foreign counsel feels confident that it may be heard.
We'll keep following it because with interest accruing at an astronomical rate, if government is not successful in getting its appeal heard in the US Supreme Court, it would mean another taxing compensation payout.
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