And while the unions and Ashcroft jostle for control and leverage here in Belize, in a Federal Court in Miami that stakes are just as high.
The trial that pits Jeffrey Prosser's ICC against the government of Belize concluded today. ICC is claiming that the total damages the government of Belize cost them is a whopping US$24.2 million. And while they might not get all that, they are confident that they will get some because the banking expert brought in to testify on damages for government's attorneys, Daniel Siener, conceded that when ICC lost control of BTL in February, it did suffer damages amounting to as much as US$5 million.
You don't have to be an expert to figure out the rest: if ICC's expert says the damages were $24 million and government's expert says it was $5 million - all figures U.S. dollars - average out the two at...say US$13 million and you could guess that either way government faces multi-million dollar damage costs. But that's speculative at this time. Federal Judge Ursula Ungaro Benages has asked both sides to present their submissions by Friday, July 1st and her final judgement is expected some time after that.
We know that ICC's lead attorney Ray Mullady has asked judge Benages to restore ICC's 6 directors to the board which would restore control of the company to Prosser. They also ask that she force BTL to register 24 million new C shares which Prosser's board had issued in December - that as we had reported at the time would completely dilute the company's presently issued share stock, and create chaos with the current share structure.
It's a tempestuous tangle of issues presently before the Federal Judge and, all parties now await her pronouncement.
