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The government of Belize lost another case to Caribbean International Brewery in the High Court today. Those are the brewers of "Mine Beer" - who had 3.2 million dollars confiscated from their company safe by the Financial Intelligence Unit over a year ago.
At the time, it was a big seizure suggesting all types of suspect business practices - but, since then, government's case against the brewery has been gradually falling apart - first with the Magistrate;s Court ordering the return of the money with interest earlier this year, and now, with a high Court ruling that came down today.
Justice Patricia Farnesse found that the case should have been over almost before it started. She found that the money should have been returned after 72 hours since the proper procedure was not followed. CIB's attorney Dean Barrow explained it to us this evening:
Dean Barrow, Attorney Caribbean Int'l Brewing
"That judgment has now come. And of course, we won. She has held that the money, as we had submitted, was improperly detained by the magistrate from the time she made her first order. And that order and all subsequent orders have been quashed, declared null and void. The basis was simply this. The act is quite clear. Once the money is seized, an order for continued detention of the seize cash must be made before the expiration of 72 hours after the seizure of the cash."
"We submitted that by the time the FIU brought the matter to court after Inspector Young had done the seizure, 72 hours had already passed a great deal when everything turned on that."
The judge found that each party will bear their own costs. And while those case is mostly a symbolic victory since the money had already been returned by the lower court - Barrow said there's much bigger case coming from the beer company which plans to sue government for all the money it lost:
Dean Barrow, Attorney Caribbean Int'l Brewing
"Our client is saying, listen, being deprived of $3.1 million in working capital for the period of time that we could not use that money in and of itself caused a contraction in our business. We could not operate at the level we were previously, in fact, going. But secondly, because of the huge reputational consequences of the seizure and the ongoing proceedings before the magistrate, more than half of their distributors, who pretty much were all Chinese operations, Chinese outfits, Chinese grocery stores or Chinese warehouses, the people took fright and said, sorry, we can't continue to we can't continue to distribute your beer anymore."
"And so there were real losses, real and serious consequential operational losses that they suffered in consequence of the wrongful continued detention of the money. So that is what will inform the claim for damages."
