The Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association has won a key legal victory in its lawsuit against ASR-BSI and its affiliate, the UK-based Tate & Lyle Sugars. The case involves claims that Fairtrade premiums from the 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 crop years were wrongly withheld and paid to other associations.
Tate & Lyle had challenged the court's jurisdiction, citing an arbitration agreement. But the Supreme Court ruled it has the authority to hear the case, citing serious issues raised. Both ASR-BSI and Tate and Lyle must now answer to the BSCFA's allegations of conspiracy and breach of trust.
BSCFA's attorney, Magali Marin Young, told us more via Zoom today.
Magali Marin Young, Attorney
"We are still at the preliminary stages and Tate and Lyle had applied to strike out the claim and the court dismissed their application so the matter is to proceed to case management and then from there, we exchange witness statements, disclosure and all that. That is if T&L sugars does not appeal. And they want to appeal to delay this matter further and we'll have to deal with that if they appeal but we basically got the green light to proceed."
"If the court had rules against us, we felt very strongly on the merits and we would have appealed that decision. So we have prepared our clients for the long haul because we expect every single technical application to be filed against this claim to delay."
"If you look at the whole timing when T&L refused to sign a letter of enhanced agreement with BSCFA it had everything to do with BSCFA agitating to renegotiate the terms of the commercial agreement. I mean history, if you go through the archives, you will see that BSCFA has long been trying to renogotiate those terms. So when the agreement expired in 2021, is when T&L refused because at that time, BSCFA was actively agitating and writing to them to renogitate and bring them to the table. So that is when they started refusing and start finding all kinds of excuses and so we're saying between them both, and they were both corresponding, both BSI and Tate and Lyle were corresponding with BSCFA, playing tag tame in finding reasons why."
