NEWCO tries to collect $8 million G.O.B. refuses to pay

Remember NEWCO and the arbitration award totaling about eight million dollars against the Government of Belize? In June of 2008 a group of investors called NEWCO got an arbitration award against the government for unlawfully cancelling its contract to develop the Philip Goldson International Airport and re-awarding the contract to a group which included Belizeans. When NEWCO presented the award to G.O.B. for payment, G.O.B. refused to honour it. Sounds familiar? NEWCO promptly applied to confirm the award in United States’ courts. In response, G.O.B. sued NEWCO in the Belize Courts as a stalling tactic, then applied to the U.S. Court for a stay of the US proceedings. In the middle of this, NEWCO’s lawyer Robert Wray suddenly died. The U.S. Court stayed all proceedings against G.O.B. pending the conclusion of the Belize case. If the legal tango sounds confusing, hang on because there a few more twists and turns. And that brings us to the present. NEWCO’s new lawyers Baker Botts say they have now applied to lift the stay of proceedings against G.O.B. on the grounds that G.O.B. basically misled the U.S. Court into believing that the arbitration was governed by Belize law. That was why the US court granted the stay to allow the matter to be cleared in the Belize Courts first. The U.S. Court will decide on all this sometime in the next couple of months. If NEWCO gets to enforce its arbitration award, it’s just more debt piling up for Belizean taxpayers. So while the G.O.B. can stall and dodge payment, it will have to deal with this sooner or later.