The scorched earth campaign between Foreign Affairs Minister Wilfred Elrington and his former business partners from the real estate company, Progresso Heights Limited, is continuing with yet another lawsuit before the Supreme Court.
By now, you've probably heard about this fight between Elrington and the American father and son, Lawrence and Adam Schneider.
It started back when Elrington was a practicing attorney, and the company's directors, who are the Schneiders, retained his law firm. That relationship grew to the point where Elrington became a minority shareholder in their company.
For years, they co-existed, until sometime in 2009, when they parted ways due to a bitter commercial dispute. Several months later, the Schneiders and the company sued Elrington alleging that he was to act as their attorney in the processing of 16 land titles at the Lands Department. They said that they deposited money into Elrington's account to carry out the job, but they never got their titles.
That dispute went from the Supreme Court, all the way to the Caribbean Court of Justice, and at the end, the CCJ ordered Elrington to produce the title documents.
Elrington insisted that he never got those land documents for properties worth several hundred thousand dollars, but somehow, all the necessary paperwork was done. So, the court carried out a procedure with the Lands Department to get new copies of those titles, which were then handed over to the Progresso Heights directors.
That's one legal fight settled, but there is another that the Court of Appeal is now deliberating. And this one was started by Elrington. He was seeking to get an inspector appointed to go into Progresso Heights, and review their finances and business arrangements to ensure that everything was above board.
A Court of Appeal judgment is pending on that. And now, there is another in the Supreme Court, in front of Justice Courtney Abel. This one is about the red-tape that Elrington set up around Progresso Heights, which stalled the company, completely stopping them from carrying out business in Belize.
So, it's currently a real estate company that cannot sell any real estate, and that's why they're trying to get Elrington's cautions lifted by the Supreme Court.
The full trial will take place in a few weeks, but today, Elrington was before Justice Abel, representing himself in an application that the Schneiders have made. They want to be allowed to give their evidence via teleconference from the US because they say they're afraid to enter Belize. While they don't accuse Elrington openly of threatening them with his authority as a Cabinet Minister, they say that past conversations with him have led them to believe that the minute they come to Belize, they will be jailed, or harmed.
It was an interesting morning of arguments where Elrington made his best attempts to convince Justice Courtney Abel to refuse the application to allow Schneider to testify via a video live link. After consideration, however, the judge rejected Elrington's arguments and granted their application.
It's a minor loss in this third court battle between these 2 litigants, and this afternoon, when he exited court, we asked Elrington about it. Here's what he had to say:
Hon. Wilfred Elrington - Litigant
"I'm a member of a company, Progresso Heights Limited, and as I said the company was being managed by 2 white Americans, father and son."
"And in consequence of that, I took action to prevent them from continuing to be able to dispose of the assets of the company, because the company was involved in the sale of land. Under our law, a person who has 20% in a company, 20% interest, and has an unregistrable interest in land can lodge cautions against those land. I am a 20% shareholder in the company, and I have an unregistrable interest in land because the company's business is in land. And so, when the company sells its lands, I should be given dividends based on the earnings from the sale of those land. The company law provides for the appointment of auditors in the general meeting, and also for the declaration of dividends in the general meeting. But, these 2 Americans have never held any annual general meeting, have never held any minutes of any meeting, have never passed any resolution, but have been selling property worth about 11 million dollars. And then they don't want to account for it."
"So, the application that I'm dealing with now is not brought by me. The application is brought by the company."
"And they are trying to have the cautions which I lodge against those lots - so that the can't sell - removed. And they're saying that I am such a bad person, that I am such a bad person, that I have threatened them - threatened, telling them that they wouldn't want to - that people don't survive being in prison in Belize, and if they come to Belize, they're liable to be arrested and put in prison. They're making up these allegations against me. It's not the first time they have, in fact, fabricated claims of this nature against me. This is a consistent pattern."
"And so, they're saying now, because of these threats that I have made against them, they are afraid to come to Belize to give evidence. And they want permission to give the evidence by video link. See? Now, I am opposing the application based on very technical, legal first principles."
"And we had difficulty with that because - I was really amazed at the response we got to the submissions."
"The judge has, of course, indicated that he will not agree to my submissions and that he will grant the order for video link - the giving of video link evidence. I have given him notice that I will be applying for leave to appeal that. This is a matter that I am prepared to appeal to the CCJ on."
"I regard them as rogue directors....and then, you hire high priced lawyers. And then they try to extinguish your right. But, they've met the wrong person. I will go to the CCJ with them."
At today's hearing, attorney Priscilla Banner represented Progresso Heights Limited. We'll keep following the case, and we'll tell you about when it goes to a full hearing.
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