So, if each side has four, who will run BTL? Well first, it should be noted that while Ashcroft and government are presented as one block of four, the truth is that, most likely, Ashcroft will end up having three directors and the government will have one, and the always game Lord Ashcroft can be expected to play whichever side of the boardroom table that earns him the greatest advantage.
But if Ashcroft does stick with government, it would present a possibly crippling scenario where the board, which runs your phone company, would be tied in a 4 - 4 deadlock, fighting for control between two openly hostile groups. Yesterday we asked Prosser's lead attorney Lanny Davis how it will work.
Jules Vasquez,
If the board, as you understand it, is in a 4-4 deadlock who will run BTL? Who will chair the board of directors and who will control the day-to-day management and administration of BTL?
Lanny Davis, Prosser's Lead Attorney
[Via Phone from Miami] "That remains to be seen and the court simply is going to await how the members of the board can work things out as a 4-4 board and we are not taking a position on those questions yet so that we can have an opportunity to sit down with the government to work things out. So our response on who is running the company is that we hope now that the government will abide by the rule of law. Mr. Vondras and Mr. Prosser (were) both the leaders of the company prior to the illegal acts of the government and we hope that they will at least temporarily work with us to select a workable leadership in the future."
Today, we were told that Attorney General Francis Fonseca will not speak publicly because of the ongoing litigation but government's Director of Information Vaughn Gill did speak on his behalf. Gill said that the government strongly disagrees with the Florida Judge's decision and hopes the Belize Supreme Court will give a more favorable interpretation of BTL's Articles of Association.
On Monday morning, Solicitor General Elson Kaseke goes to the Supreme Court looking for that interpretation. Government claims that there is an uncertainty because the articles do not specifically state how to remove certain directors. It's a convenient argument, and it would be even better if it were right; but the truth is that the articles do speak very clearly on the removal those directors, saying that it can only be done by the group holding the special share. And government quite happily sold that share to Jeffrey Prosser for just $1 a year ago when, under the articles, it had no authority to transfer it to any person or company outside of the government.
And while government tries to recover from past errors with a ruling from the Supreme Court on Monday morning, the BTL board with 4 directors for Prosser, as ordered and legitimized by Solicitor General Kaseke, will be meeting at the same time. It's contradiction piled atop confusion for government which, with Kaseke's letter to the company secretary, has basically admitted to the illegality of the government's actions when the Prime Minister declared 6-2 control of the board last week Wednesday.
Of course, with Kaseke's admission government has only confirmed the position that this newscast first declared on February 9th when we held that government had illegally appointed four C directors. But, again, it is a position that government still disbelieves and has only been forced to adopt because the Florida Judge has told Prosser's lawyers that they are free to apply for damages which could be in the millions of dollars. So now government is trying to play make-up on one front, while it clings to and tries to legitimize its original position on another.
It's not clear how long this duplicity will be tenable, but it's clear that government feels it has to play up to Prosser even as it tries to force his ouster. And like any cute game, government has to be careful how it plays, because yesterday the Florida Federal Judge Ursula Ungaro Benages warned against what she calls "parallel litigation." In transcripts obtained from yesterday's hearing she said, "(the government) is welcome to reach a conclusion opposite to mine. But that won't..change the fact that the government of Belize is putting itself and its assets in (the United States) in jeopardy." That's strong talk, and Judge Benages backed it up by saying, "it does seem as though the government of Belize wants to be hit in the head with a 2 by 4."
