Prosser seeks to double G.O.B.’s daily contempt fine

They’ve sued the Government of Belize for millions, invoked arbitration clauses in search of millions more, and threatened to use their pull in the U.S. Congress and White House to punish the Musa administration even further. You’d think that by this time U.S. wheeler-dealer and hard pay artist Jeffrey Prosser would take a rest while the legal process works its way toward a conclusion. But welcome to the major leagues where hardball is the only game in town. On Thursday, lawyers for Prosser’s Innovative Communication Company filed a request to U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro-Benages to increase the level of the contempt fine she levied against Belmopan from fifty thousand dollars a day to one hundred thousand. The reason for the motion is government’s passage of legislation that would presumably allow the Minister of Public Utilities and Public Utilities Commission to deprive Prosser of the “special share” it now holds in Belize Telecommunications Limited. According to I.C.C.’s filings with the Miami court, that legislation is described as government’s “most blatant manoeuvre to date to thwart the court’s injunction order.” That order, made by the judge on March eleventh, prevents both government and I.C.C. from, among other things, cancelling any shares of B.T.L. stock without mutual agreement. It is not clear–at least to this media house–if the original fifty thousand a day contempt fine is still running, as Judge Ungaro has yet to reply to defence attorneys requests for clarification. How she will deal with this latest application is anybody’s guess. Meanwhile, U.S. lawyers for the Belize government spent today in Washington, D.C., trying to convince State Department officials that sovereign governments ought not be held hostage by U.S. courts. Prosser attorney Lanny Davis had made the same rounds at Foggy Bottom, the day before.