Supreme Court Rules Against LPG Importers, Notice of Appeal is Filed

Time is quickly running out for Gas Tomza Limited, Southern Choice Butane, Zeta Gas and Belize Western Energy Limited to continue in business. That is because the Supreme Court has ruled against the LPG importers who were seeking an interim injunction that would have allowed them to continue in the business past April thirtieth. Last week Acting Chief Justice Michelle Arana denied the injunction to restrain the government from refusing to issue licenses to these companies. As you know, the government has shares in the new National Gas Company which has been granted a fifteen-year exclusive importation license.  Attorney Audrey Matura has now filed a notice of appeal to the Court of Appeal, which she is being pushed to be heard ahead of Thursday.

Audrey Matura

Audrey Matura, Attorney-at-law

“The reason we had to file an injunction is because the clients, the claimants got a letter from government saying that we will not give you any more importation license. So we then went for this injunction. The injunction was denied; there were different reasons that the court gave for denying the injunction although the court held that there is a serious case to be tried on the constitutional mater. So the update to that is that we have filed a notice of appeal—I have the receipt right here. We filed the notice of appeal to the Court of Appeal, however, we are waiting for a date and of course we are applying to have it heard immediately simply because it is a matter of urgency because come the end of this month, there will be no more importation license to the claimants.”