Earlier in the news, we took you to the Supreme Court for the latest fight between the Ashcroft Alliance and the Government over the BTL acquisition and its settlement.
Today’s case gave us the first opportunity to ask Rodwell Williams about that BTL Settlement Deed from 2015 which still continues to haunt the Barrow Administration.
You’ll remember that when the half-a-billion-dollar BTL settlement was first introduced to the Belizean people, the Prime Minister had an interesting sales pitch. He acknowledged that this was indeed an astronomical figure that the the country would have to pay for the the company, but of that final figure, 60% of it would go into a trust to be used on projects for the people of Belize.
The Ashcroft Alliance went to court, and because of the knotted language of the settlement deed, he was able to convince the court that he should get half of the settlement upfront. So, Belize’s portion was reduced to only 50%.
Then, the Ashcroft Alliance convinced the court from that remaining half, he should get almost the entire portion to cover his legal costs over the 7 years that this case has been going back and forth to the different courts. So, basically, the Alliance walked away the undisputed winner of this fight.
And, all that was possible because of the settlement deed, which the CCJ judges commented was a badly drafted document. So, which Government attorney didn’t do their homework to cause this costly lost? We’d been hearing that the Prime Minister’s law partner, Rodwell Williams, was supposedly the lead man. We got a chance to ask him about that today, and he asserted strongly, that he didn’t draft the costly settlement deed. Here’s how that conversation went:
Daniel Ortiz
"Since when the BTL Settlement Deed was first drafted, your name was called one of the attorneys who -"
Rodwell Williams
"The settlement deed, you just look at it, and you'll see the firm of attorney who is on record, and it's not my firm. It is another firm, but it's right in the document. But, we don't deal with these issues outside. But, it's in the document, the attorneys who represented the Government name is mentioned, for the parties for the Government side, and for the other side. It's in the settlement deed, just look at it. It's law. This government fully disclosed it, it's the schedule in the act, the Settlement Act. You look at it if you care to do your job, and you'll see it."
So, at this time, we still don’t know for certain, who drafted the settlement document. Back in September 2016, when we asked Denys Barrow about the document, he also asserted that he wasn’t the drafter.
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