As viewers are aware, it has been over 8 years that the Barrow Government and the Ashcroft Alliance has been fighting over the nationalizations. Last year, in November, GOB finally finished paying off the settlement, but not long after that, Sunshine Holdings began crying foul.

Sunshine Holdings is one of those companies with an interesting backstory. It was once a part of the Ashcroft Group of Companies up until 2009, when the Barrow Administration acquired all the shares in BTL in the nationalization effort. It then switched hands and became government controlled, and at present it still is a Government company with a sole appointed director, Nestor Vasquez.

The problem is that Sunshine once owned 11 million shares in BTL, and the former owners of Sunshine, Dean Boyce and the Trustees of the BTL Employees Trust, made a claim for compensation. We learned today that they were paid over a 100 million dollars.

The problem is that in order to purchase those 11 million BTL shares, Sunshine, while it was Ashcroft controlled, made a loan of 10 million dollars from the Government, and an additional 10 million from the Social Security Board. Those loans were made during the Musa Administration, and at this moment, the Government controlled Sunshine still has that debt, and no money to pay it. So, they are disputing the payment of the compensation money to the Dean Boyce and the Employees Trust.

Their position is that those BTL shares were never actually owned by the former owners of Sunshine. They say that it was owned by the company itself, and that since the Barrow Government took over the company's shares, the company, which is now government controlled, should have been the ones paid for the shares. The problem is that the half-a-billion dollar payment has already been made. That cake has been cut, and Sunshine didn't get any of it. So, they're hoping that the Supreme Court will order Dean Boyce and the Employees Trust to return that compensation payment to them instead.

Sunshine's attorney, Rodwell Williams, made opening arguments today and 2 witnesses, including Financial Secretary Joseph Waight, were called to testify.

In response, Eamon Courtenay, who is representing the BTL Employees Trust, carefully cross-examined Financial Secretary Joseph Waight, and he focused on the very close connection between the Government and Sunshine.

Courtenay cross examined Joseph Waight who admitted that Sunshine never made a claim for compensation, which from their perspective was the proper thing to have been done. He also got the Fin Sec to agree that if Sunshine had made a claim for compensation, they would have most likely been successful.

Another major element of Sunshine's case is an assertion that the Government kept promising them that they would be compensated for their shares, and that's why they didn't press for payment until after they realized that Government had no compensation to give them. Courtenay was able to get the Fin Sec to agree that he knows of no such promise, and that he would have been the most appropriate Government official to give Sunshine such a commitment.