Stake Bank Enterprise Drops Multimillion Dollar Lawsuit Against G.O.B.

Stake Bank’s multimillion dollar claim, a lawsuit that was brought against the Government of Belize prior to the company falling into receivership, has been discontinued.  On Friday, the law firm of Barrow & Williams issued a notice to the High Court that Claim Number two hundred sixty-nine of 2021, between Stake Bank Enterprise Limited and the attorney general, the National Environmental Appraisal Committee and the Department of the Environment has been withdrawn.  Earlier today, News Five spoke with Senior Counsel Dean Barrow who acts on behalf of S.B.E.L.’s receiver, Marlowe Neal.  According to Barrow, the company is not in a position to proceed with the claim, given its financial situation.

 

 

On the phone: Dean Barrow, Senior Counsel, Attorney-at-law

“We filed that notice pursuant to the instructions of the receiver.  You know that the company is, all the world knows that the company is now in receivership and the receiver has to be a sort of jealous guardian of the resources that the company in receivership possesses.  There are the receiver’s bringing in as many of the assets as he can and he has to think in terms of satisfying the creditors of the company.  In those circumstances the receiver did not believe that the company was in a position to continue with that claim against the attorney general.  First of all, if the company had continued the claim, the burden of paying the attorneys who, at the time the claim was filed, in acting for the company, the burden of paying them would now fall on the receiver and so because, as I said, in husbanding, as it were, the resources of the company the receiver has to be very, very careful, very, very prudent and the receiver decided that the company was not in a state in which it could continue the claim against the attorney general.  Thus, his instructions to us is to discontinue that claim and that’s what we have now down.  What is important is the fact that the receiver is convinced that the company is not in a position to continue that claim.”