So, while that legal procedure runs its course, CIB Limited's funds will remain under lock and key. The company claims that those millions form part of its operating capital.
Representatives of the company have asserted that if the money weren't returned, their business operations would fold. But Dean Barrow and the FIU's attorneys agree that this constitutional challenge in the Supreme Court will last much longer than the three months that the FIU wanted the money to remain confiscated.
Barrow told us that the company has secured an emergency bridge financing to keep their operations afloat:
Dean Barrow, SC, Attorney for CIB
"They've said they had to go an borrow money at, I don't know the rate of interest, but no doubt extortionate, but they've done that and so they continue to operate. It is still one hell of a strain and they are being prejudice, but they are going to be able to survive and that is why I've decided, fine. Look, in my view this magistrate was never going to do other than accede to the application for continued detention, so nothing is lost by getting ahead and we would have to go to the supreme court. Nothing is lost by getting a head start on now. By the time we get to the supreme court, as I said the application, she is considering will be mute, because 3 months would have passed, but we will then have the chance to establish that she proceeded absolutely wrongly, that is she proceeded correctly then the law under which she proceeded is either her procedure is unconstitutional or the law permitting such a procedure is unconstitutional. Either way, my clients will be then be entitled to demand and receive redress."
We'll keep following the latest developments in this story as they unfold.
