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Unions Take BTC Fight To Supreme Court

In their latest bid to prevent the sale of Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) to Cable & Wireless (CWC), the unions have filed a writ in the Supreme Court.

A novel legal approach, conjured up by attorney Maurice Glinton, has the Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union (BCPCU) and the Bahamas Communications and Public Managers Union (BCPOU) seeking a declaration from the Supreme Court that the government does not have the legal authority to sell BTC.

The Bahamas Telecommunications Corporation, the Bahamas Telecommunications Company Limited, Julian Francis and the Attorney General are named as defendants.

Glinton, who recently and successfully represented the Coconut Grove Business League in their suit concerning the road construction, is representing the unions in this new battle with the government.  He says the unions take the position that BTC cannot be sold.

Glinton feels that in order for the Bahamas government to sell BTC it first must form a company called BTC and divest the corporation of its assets.

“Heretofore the argument has always been on the so-called right of government to do what it is doing, but without really dealing with this whole question as to whether the government still owns the corporation because from our knowledge of things and the way they progressed; the corporation became a self-owning corporation since about the day of its establishment,” the Nassau Guardian reports Mr Glinton as saying.

The position of the unions is that the assets that were held by BaTelCo were never legally transfered to BTC when it was formed.

The unions are seeking a number of declarations; including a declaration that BTC’s creation amounted to an illegal taking of the property of BaTelCo.

BCPOU President Bernard Evans said the unions are not backing down in their fight.

“We are confident in what our legal team was able to share with us, that maybe the government was wrong and never had a right to sell or offer for sale BTC,” he said.

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