More on the Accommodation Agreement and L.C.I.A. judgment
Last week, the government made much ruckus about the release of the Accommodation Agreement signed back in 2005 with Belize Telemedia. Belmopan claimed that the documents were secret and had never seen the light of day until government forcibly took over Telemedia two weeks ago. Never mind that the agreement has been in the headlines since 2008, and has been discussed and debated in the public domain consistently. In fact, the government’s own newspaper the Guardian, and G.O.B. voice piece, Channel Seven, on June twenty-sixth, 2008, publicized the document as headlines news.
The Agreement was also the subject of proceedings in the Supreme Court in a number of cases brought against Telemedia by the government and the agreement has therefore been available for public review at the registry for some time. There is also the well ventilated challenge mounted by Senator Godwin Hulse and the ACB in April 2009, which clearly reflects that both must have been privy to its contents, to want the agreement voided by the courts.
As to the charge being made that the new Telemedia Board is now repudiating the Accommodation Agreement, by his own admission recently, Prime Minister Barrow made public statements to the effect that on August twenty-fourth, attorneys for Telemedia, wrote to him setting the agreement aside, so the Net Vasquez Board must be asleep at the wheel not to know that the company had already repudiated the agreement. The letter states that since there is a clear intention on behalf of the government not to be bound by the terms of the Agreement, and so Telemedia has chosen to end it.
We can also report tonight that News Five has obtained a copy of a ruling by the London Court of International Arbitration dated March 18, 2009 in respect of the Accommodation Agreement. The one hundred and nine page ruling was delivered by a tribunal comprising Mark Kantor, Paula Hodges and Allan Redfern. It is a Final Award by the LCIA in respect of numerous disputes by the government as to whether Telemedia was entitled to certain concessions provided by virtue of the agreement.
The government chose not to participate in the proceedings but nonetheless, the tribunal made major awards to Telemedia and found that government had acted in breach of agreement. The ruling from the tribunal in favour of Telemedia was specific, that (quote) “the Accommodation Agreement is binding on the Government.” (unquote). The tribunal also validated the concessions agreed to and awarded in excess of thirty-eight million Belize dollars to Telemedia for Government’s failure to comply with the terms of the legally binding agreement.
Click Here to view a full copy of the LCIA judgment.
