So what's the problem? Well, while BTL has agreed to give the 6% interest, as we explained, they're only planning to do so for the time period between the CCJ ruling and when the cheques are written. However, the BCWJ demands that the interest be paid from the time the employee left the company - which can be decades. The difference in the payout is vast - we're talking about a few hundred dollars as opposed to thousands of dollars.
The Chief Human Resources Officer explained that the two parties could not come to a compromise, and that is where the negotiations broke down.
Kendra Santos, Chief Human Resources Officer
"If we're both saying we're talking and we're both saying we don't want to go to court. The expectation that we will give and you will get everything that you believe you should get if you go to court cannot be the premise that we're talking in our view. You can't think that you will end up getting everything you believe you will get if you go to court if it is we are talking outside of court and we want to settle. Both parties have to agree to get something and to give up something, that's the spirit in which we approach the discussions."
"I go back to I think there was an expectations we realize despite our improved positions and offers along the way, that there was an expectation that they're moving so we could get more and we deserve what the others got from going to court and I think that fundamental difference in opinion that you should get exactly what those who went to court get even though we are not at court and you're not giving up anything is a big disconnect and two, I will put it mildly to say that the manner in which we were engaged this last time, the second meeting, the tone, the spirit, the lack of professional expertise as we would want to see it was what we were engaged with and we recognize that for those two reasons, being so far apart, you're trying to get the 6% and everything that comes with a court judgement, along with the approach is not the spirit in which we can reasonably negotiate and that is why in our view, for those two reasons, it broke down and why we're here today to tell everyone in Belize that the company wants to move forward without delay and settle with everybody in the same manner so whether you are being represented by BCWJ whether you write on your own to the mailbox whether you come through an attorney, whatever it is, BTL's board has approved that we want to pay and we want to pay in this manner and we think it's reasonable to give the severance and interest from November 2025 when the judgement was handed down to whenever we actually cut a cheque for persons."
