B.T.L./MMR Taken To Court
Kareem Musa
B.T.L. and MMR Belize Limited, the company that owns the game-show Mek Mi Rich, are currently being taken to Court. It’s a highly technical case, but in a nutshell – one young programmer, Curtis Swasey, is alleging that B.T.L. used his concept and intellectual property without legal authority or permission to partner with MMR in the creation of Mek Mi Rich. As background, Swasey says that in January 2012 he approached B.T.L. with a novel idea known as lottery texting. Over the course of the next two years, under the protection of a non-disclosure agreement, Swasey alleges that he provided the technical information, education, software and training to B.T.L., with the understanding that they would collaborate in a project using that concept. But it didn’t work out that way.
Kareem Musa, Attorney for Curtis Swasey
“After teaching them everything, after sharing all of this confidential information, on the seventh of August just last year, personnel at B.T.L. sent an email to Mr. Swasey and it says that they thank him for his attractive proposal and they express appreciation for his patience and thoroughness in developing the offer. But they ended off by saying that unfortunately they could not accept his proposal because it was not in line with the strategy of B.T.L. for that fiscal year. That is the response after two years of engaging with Mr. Swasey, after getting off this information. They sent an email terminating, shutting the door on him completely and saying you know what, that is not in our strategy this year. But lo and behold, only a few weeks later we started seeing advertisements of this program Mek Mi Rich. We started seeing a man coming down a slide with some girls on a beach. We didn’t know what it was about. None of us knew what it was about. Certainly Mr. Swasey did not know what it was about until it actually started – until the game show started and we see that it is exactly the same type of concept as introduced by Mr. Swasey whereby you purchase a lottery ticket by way of sending a text message. Again, this was a concept that he developed, that he introduced and that he sold to B.T.L. He had many meetings with B.T.L. and he has not received one copper for it. And so what this lawsuit is about, it’s taking B.T.L. to Court. We are suing the first defendant for a breach of this information exchange agreement.”
