The full bill for the BTL acquisition is coming due and it's in the hundreds of millions of dollars. 7News has received unofficial information saying that the ruling from the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Netherlands has been issued - and right now the numbers people on both sides are just reviewing the final figures to see if they are correct.
As you may recall, the Ashcroft Allied company, Dunkeld International took the government to international arbitration for the acquisition of its 45 million or so shares in Telemedia.
The Ashcroft side claimed the shares were worth around ten Belize dollars each, and government's international experts, the valuation company NERA put the value at about one dollar and fity cents per share.
Well, the preliminary and unofficial information we've gotten is that the arbitration panel came down right in the middle of those two numbers - at about 5.50 Belize dollars per share.
That brings the total compensation owing to Dunkeld at a still very significant 250 million Belize dollars. Notably, we are told that more than 50% of that award is attributable to the lavish promises made in the much criticized accommodation agreement.
Still, government is on the hook for those hundreds of millions of dollars, and the only consolation is that a portion of the award is to be paid in Belize dollars towards a fund whose proceeds are to be spent in Belize. We'll keep following the story for official confirmation.
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