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PM Says The Reserves May Still Be Within Reach Of Vulture Funds
posted (January 27, 2017)
So while there was rare show of bi partisanship - it doesn't mean the reserves are all completely secured from the Ashcroft Axis. As the PM outlined in an interview, it's safe for now, but there are very real threats out there - both to the reserves and to the currency peg:...

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"I hope and believe that with what was done today, I expect that the senate will vote similarly. I'm hoping and believing that after the bill is signed into law, it will certainly act to deter those that may have been thinking of going after the reserves. So I feel relatively comfortable that we are in a safe place. I was just trying to, in terms of the title of that famous book of the French revolution, reach a place of greater safety. I need to repeat that this can't stop people who are not within our jurisdiction from making an attempt. The law is effective in the context of what we know is currently in play, but for example, suppose you were talking about vulture funds. They is no way we can get at the operators/owners of those vulture funds, if they were to be some assignment of this award to a vulture fund."

Jules Vasquez, 7News
"So, let's say it's some vulture fund, seeks to go after it and the results are frozen for a period. How would that affect or would that raise the spector of the devaluation?"

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"It might to be perfectly candid and that's what I'm worried about. I talked about trying to ensure that for example the people that we were particularly thinking of, would not be able to get an exparte freezing order, which we believe if happened we could fairly quickly unblock, but in the meantime the reputational, the psychological and perhaps even the practical damage would be enormous. So. We are hoping that this in terms of what's immediately in play also guards against that. The deterrent feature of the legislation should be enough to give anybody who knows that they are a part of an entity that is within our jurisdiction, pause for thought. The honorable minister for housing said the penalty should be increased. Apart from not wanting to be disproportionate, I don't think any of those who we are currently contending with would want to spend a day in jail. So 2 years quite enough. But with respect to what I said is immediately in front of us I think we are safe."

Jules Vasquez, 7News
"However you can see this might be interpreted as forgive banana republic legislation to jail those to whom you owe a debt with a US court has upheld."

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"A debt which a US court was upheld, but a debt which our highest court has said is absolutely improper. You have a point, I think, but to the extent of the conferral of the immunity that is not in any wise unusual because I'm telling you they themselves confer immunity to the extent that you make it a criminal offense, there may be room for that so out of thinking. I consulting with our foreign legal advisers before determining to embark on this course and they didn't think that it could play in a role that in the US the judges will look at it in a clinical way."

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