You may remember the name Meridian Enterprises - that's the company which took over Maya King's banana farms after owner John Zabaneh was commercially blacklisted by a Kingpin designation. Meridian was a management company run by Zabaneh's mother - so that the Kingpin designation would not affect Maya King farms, Belize's largest banana producer at the time.
Well, that was going along well enough until an October 2015 7News article quoted Zabaneh speaking on behalf of Meridian. After that, Fyffes - which is an Irish company - immediately cut all ties with Meridian - because of the Kingpin taint.
As a result of that - Meridian had no one to sell its bananas to, and its farms were forced into closure. Hundreds of banana farm workers loss their jobs, thousands of pounds of bananas were left to rot in the field, and Belize's total banana exports took a major hit.
Well, two years later, Meridian is suing Fyffes. 7News has confirmed that Meridian has retained Eamon Courtenay to sue Fyffes for what we are told are "substantial damages" resulting from the abrupt termination of their commercial arrangement. Fyffes has retained the law firm of Barrow and Williams. No date has been set for hearing.
Meridian's farms remain mostly abandoned and are now overgrown. We understand that the efforts to reboot banana production on the farms have been challenging, since, Meridian has to get access to a loan to finance the replanting. We are told that they have shifted focus a bit to citrus in the interim.
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