Will Sunshine Ask Again to Come In?

Dean Barrow

On Friday, Supreme Court Justice Courtney Abel crushed the hopes of Sunshine Holdings Limited to receive a share, or at the outside, all of the more than one hundred and fourteen million dollars paid to Dean Boyce and the Trustees of the B.T.L. Employees’ Trust in the 2015 settlement agreement on Belize Telemedia. The decision leaves government on the hook for a total of twenty million dollars in investment loans from the Social Security Board and government’s own funds that Sunshine borrowed to purchase the shares. The S.S.B. loan is backed by a guarantee from the government. Prime Minister Dean Barrow spoke about the case on Wednesday and boosted Sunshine’s hopes of an appeal.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“I will go further to what I said earlier, and express the hope that Sunshine will appeal. Indeed, the liability for those investment loans under the settlement remained with Sunshine, and that is the entire burden of the Sunshine court application, that since the Ashcroft people collected the compensation for the acquisition of the B.T.L. shares, which originally were held by Sunshine, they should be made at the very least to put Sunshine in funds to settle the liability for the investment loans. Clearly, Sunshine has lost that application before the Supreme Court; but I am confident that there will be appeals lodged.”

A written decision from Justice Abel is pending, after which Sunshine counsel Rodwell Williams has twenty-one days to officially file an appeal of the result.