Ashcroft Attorney Says Speculation on Arbitration Award is Pointless

The official figure tallied in what will very likely be a whopping arbitration award is due in soon. We’ve all heard the numbers being thrown around – anywhere from a quarter billion to a half billion dollars, and we’re not talking monopoly money. Half that award will have to be paid out by the Government of Belize within ten days after it comes in, the other half within a year. Attorney for the Ashcroft Group Eamon Courtenay told us today that speculation serves no purpose at this point, since the undisputed figure will be in soon enough.

Eamon Courtenay

Eamon Courtenay, Attorney, Ashcroft Group

“The reason you have all of this speculation is because there is no final award from the arbitrators. As has been stated by the government, there is a number that is attributed to the value of the shares; there is a number that is attributed to the accommodation agreement. Those two taken together comes up just below six dollars Belize per share or six dollars Belize in value. The big number that is unknown is the interest. The big number that is unknown is over what period and over at what rate that interest is going to run and whether it is simple or compounded. And what you have is just rank speculation as to what that is going to be. Until that is done, I don’t want to add to the misinformation and confusion and speculation. I think we should wait. On top of that of course, there is going to be the legal fees. The arbitrators have the discretion to say, government you pay all the legal fees or government you pay part of the legal fees or government you pay none of the legal fees. That is within their discretion and I think we should wait to see what the arbitrators are going to say. I do not expect that it is going to take them longer. The issues that are left for them to resolve are not great, they are mathematical issues and I will expect within a matter of weeks we are going to know what the final figure is.”