Butane Companies Battle Government at CCJ Over $11M Compensation Ruling

Judges of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) are expected to deliver a ruling in the coming weeks after attorneys representing a group of butane companies delivered counterarguments today against the government of Belize. Today was day two of the hearing at the CCJ between the Government of Belize and four private butane companies. Back in 2022, the then Supreme Court ruled that the government violated the rights of the companies when it nationalized the importation of butane through the National Liquefied Petroleum Gas Project Act of 2019. Under the Act, the National Gas Company would be the sole importer of butane. The court ruled that the government would have to pay Gas Tomza Limited, Western Gas Company Limited, Southern Choice Butane Limited (Zeta Gas), and Belize Western Energy Limited almost eleven million dollars in compensation for the rights violation. The government appealed the matter, and the companies filed a counter-appeal. Today’s session, which was presided over by a five-member panel of judges, lasted just over three and a half hours, with the legal team for the companies taking up the first hour and a half. Attorney for the respondents, Douglas Mendes Senior Counsel, spoke on the effect that the legislation had on the companies.

Douglas Mendes SC, Attorney, Respondents: “The goodwill that was developed by the respondent companies in this case is a goodwill in relation to their wholesaling and retailing of gas. But of course, in order to, and that is manifested by their wholesale customers and their retail customers, but in order to service their wholesale and retail customers they had to get gas from somewhere. That gas was not available locally, at least not in the quantities that is necessary and therefore had to be imported. The effect of  preventing them from importing the gas to service their wholesale and retail customers  and the vesting of that exclusive right in the NGC is that the goodwill in that aspect of the business dealing with wholesaling, that is to say the wholesale customers was lost or taken, lost to or taken by the NGC. So the question is not is there goodwill in an importation business. The question is whether the prohibition against importation or the vesting of the monopoly in importation in NGC resulted in the taking of the goodwill of the respondents’ business as it relates to or as it manifested by their wholesale customers.”

Following the counterarguments, attorney for the government Eamon Courtenay offered some rebuttals. Courtenay, who presented the government’s case yesterday, noted that the Act was passed to wrest control of the butane industry from the Zaragoza brothers, who own the four companies. He noted that the government passed the law, as the situation with the companies being owned by the same family had led to insecurity within the butane industry, transfer pricing, and questions about the quality of butane being imported. No date has been set for when the judges will deliver their ruling./