APUA involved in Stanford land negotiations

Spencer and the UPP Government sink to New Low

By Observer News

The government of Antigua & Barbuda might not have to cough up a large sum of money to reacquire two parcels of Stanford-owned land near VC Bird International Airport.

The Daily OBSERVER understands from reliable government sources that the cash-strapped administration has agreed in principle with the Stanford Development Company (SDC) to take over its debt to APUA in exchange for immediate title ownership of the six acres in question.

Assurances also came from government sources that the reacquisition process is not currently delaying the construction of the new airport terminal.

Chairman of the Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) Clarvis Joseph also gave assurances that the statutory corporation would cooperate with attempts to reacquire the lands.

“Bearing in mind that both of the parties have difficulty finding money right now, we will accommodate it because it’s the airport building and if that is going to hold up the airport construction by who has and who doesn’t have money, then (we will) facilitate it,” Joseph said.

He noted the statutory corporation has a court order against SDC that requires the Stanford-owned company to settle a debt of close to $2.4 million by February 6, 2012.

“SDC was sued by APUA for monies that they owed. We have a judgement on that and there is a proposal that they sell the lands to the government and they have said they would like the proceeds of any sale to accrue to APUA,” Joseph said.

“APUA is not indisposed to accommodate that. The question is whether the government and Stanford can agree on that,” Joseph added.

According to the APUA chairman, order is tied to the same two SDC-owned lands that the government wishes to acquire. And he said should SDC fail to settle the debt by the deadline, APUA would be in a position to acquire the lands in order to settle the debt.

The government and SDC are hoping to seal an agreement that would see the government take over the debt in exchange for the land before the February deadline. The first step for the government though would be agreeing on a valuation of the land with SDC.

“If the value of the lands that they arrive at is lower than the debt they owe to APUA, then they would have to pay us the additional amount direct. If the value is more than, then the government would have to pay them the difference. APUA has no problem with that proposition,” Joseph said.

Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer said in his New Year’s address that he has instructed Acting Chairman of the Airport Authority Gatesworth James to negotiate on a price of the land. However James refused to comment on the situation. Meanwhile attempts to contact SDC’s legal representative Hugh Marshall Jr proved unsuccessful.

Damming Evidence from the Report into the SEC

From a report by the SEC’s Office of the Inspector General, into why the financial body didn’t expose the alleged $7bn Ponzi scheme operated by charismatic Texan, Sir Allen Stanford, earlier.

Of note is that the SEC was ‘on to’ Stanford as early as 1997:

The OIG investigation found that the SEC’s Fort Worth office was aware since 1997 that Robert Allen Stanford was likely operating a Ponzi scheme, having come to that conclusion a mere two years after Stanford Group Company (“SGC”), Stanford’s investment adviser, registered with the SEC in 1995. We found that over the next 8 years, the SEC’s Fort Worth Examination group conducted four examinations of Stanford’s operations, finding in each examination that the CDs could not have been “legitimate,” and that it was “highly unlikely” that the returns Stanford claimed to generate could have been achieved with the purported conservative investment approach. Fort Worth examiners dutifully conducted examinations of Stanford in 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2004, concluding in each case that Stanford’s CDs were likely a Ponzi scheme or a similar fraudulent scheme. The only significant difference in the Examination group’s findings over the years was that the potential fraud grew exponentially, from $250 million to $1.5 billion.

The report says pressure on SEC officials to look into certain types of fraud — in particular one’s that could be settled quickly and without much legal fuss — may have led to the scuppering of early attempts. But there was one added ‘difficulty’ in prosecuting Stanford in the late 1990s.

Stanford simply refused to cooperate:

Despite the examiners’ referral of their serious concern that SGC was part of a Ponzi scheme, the Enforcement staff did not open a matter under inquiry (“MUI”) into the Stanford case until eight months later, in May 1998, and did so only after learning that another federal agency suspected Stanford of money laundering. The OIG investigation further found the only evidence of any investigative action taken by Enforcement in connection with this MUI was a voluntary request for documents that the SEC sent SGC in May 1998. We found that after Stanford refused to voluntarily produce numerous documents relating to SGC’s referrals of investors to SIB, no further investigative steps were taken; after being opened for only three months, in August 1998, the MUI was closed.