The United States may suspend all foreign aid that it gives to Antigua and Barbuda in response to the country’s “challenging” the authority of a US court that is attempting to liquidate what remains of Stanford International Bank.
The bank is named for Allen Stanford, a financier who currently awaits trial in the US for charges of swindling 20,000 investors out of $7.2 billion in an alleged Ponzi scheme. Lawmakers are considering two resolutions – one in the US House of Representatives and one in the US Senate – in response to Antigua and Barbuda’s perceived failure to cooperate with the orders of a court in the Northern District of Texas that is conducting a receivership proceeding of Mr. Stanford’s bank. Mr. Stanford has denied any allegations of wrongdoing, calling the accusations “baloney.”
Both resolutions allege that SIB conducted most of its business in the American states of Texas and Tennessee and only was registered and regulated under Antiguan and Barbudan law. An order by the American district court took “exclusive control” of “all assets of Allen Stanford and Stanford-related entities.” However, the Antiguan and Barbudan government later appointed its own liquidators and “expropriated” several Stanford-owned properties worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the resolutions.
See the Jan. 6, 2012 edition for full coverage.