Haitel - Haiti Observer Blog

Will Leo Joseph and Haiti Observateur do it?

Leo Joseph who is the owner of the popular newspaper Haiti Observateur agreed to the dismissal of a lawsuit brought against them by Laurent Lamothe at a price.

In exchange for the dismissal and under the penalty of perjury, the newspaper agreed to publish a sworn declaration by Michael Charles. The declaration should clearly state that the allegations against Mr. Lamothe and Mr. Baker were completely fabricated

US District Court Judge John O'Sullivan entered an order approving a settlement between the parties on Monday, October 28, 2013.

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Leo Joseph, the owner of the Haiti Observateur Group has agreed to the dismissal of a lawsuit brought against them by the Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe and Patrice Baker, Lamothe's former business partner. The Haitian Prime Minister Lamothe and Baker sued the online paper in 2012 for publishing an article that alleged them for pressuring "Haitel", a bankrupt telecom company, to sell its assets below market price to an investment company named 'Nord Citadel' who was seeking investment opportunities in Haiti.

The main allegation against Lamothe and Baker was that they forced Nord Citadel to make a down payment as full purchase price to buy the assets of Haitel for $25 million though its market value was somewhere around $80 million. The online paper published the story, as per their earlier declaration, on the basis of an interview with Michael Charles, the founder and managing partner of Nord Citadel.

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The CEO of the first telecommunications company to bring cell phones to Haiti, Haitel's Franck Ciné, was not his usual silent self in a recent interview with Vision 2000 journalist, Valery Numa. He outlined the companies past, leading up its declaration of bankruptcy and the subsequent trouble that's afflicted the struggling Telecom.

During the discussion, Ciné revealed much information about the current status of the company, including the fact that Teleco currently holds a 5% claim to Haitel, following Haitel's failure to make payment to the former company. Apart from stating facts, Ciné laid out statistics, juxtaposing Haiti's 80% unemployment rate for comparison against the benefit to the economy a thriving Haitel provides. He stated that the company provided approximately 3000 jobs directly, which indirectly served nearly 15,000 people in Haiti.

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Complaints from Franck Cine were filed against Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe and Presidents Rene Preval and Michel Martelly with International Criminal Court by Haitel's CEO Frank Cine's lawyers. The aforementioned figures were charged with confiscation of property, illegal prosecution, torture, unlawful detention and unjust arrest towards Haitel's asset auction sale as well as towards Cine family.

Attorney Guy Lewis who is the head of Lewis & Tein Law firm, sent a letter on 8th May, 2013 to Ms. Fatou Bensouda who is the prosecutor of International Criminal Court in The Hague. The letter requested an immediate investigation into the charges against Rene Preval, Michel Martelly, Laurent Lamothe and other government officials.

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Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe won what, to some, was an unsurprising victory in his libel suit against New York based website Haiti Observateur. In two articles published in August of 2012 the website, through its reporter Leo Joseph, extended theories about the prime minister and his business partner Patrice Baker's role in the sale of the telecommunications company Haitel that U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro has now declared to be false and malicious.

The articles posited that the company, which shut down after an inability to pay its debts, was bought by the Haitian government in a deal brokered by Lamothe in which he fixed its sale price of $25 million, and positioned himself to receive, what they described as, the 'lion's share' of the profit. Upon noting the libelous nature of the articles Lamothe and Baker filed a lawsuit in September 2012, citing the damage done to their political and business profiles after the implications of corruption and conspiracy made by Joseph and the newspaper which has reported its weekly circulation within the Haitian Diaspora to reach 75,000.

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Haiti Telecommunication International (Haitel) is now in receivership as a result of its tax problems with the government. General Tax Directorate (DGI) director general Jean Baptiste Clark Neptune announced that the request for Haitel's receivership was approved in order to continue the company's operations and protect its employees and shareholders. Neptune clarified that the measure was taken not to close the telecommunication company but to help it resume its operations.

It can be recalled that Haitel has been buried in debt. Since 2005, it has accumulated a debt of more than $80 million in government taxes from several institutions such as DGI, National Council of Telecommunications (CONATEL), BRH and BNC, among others. The total debt accounts for 40% of government taxes.
CONATEL director Jean Marie Guillaume, who held a meeting with the DGI director, said that Haitel could no longer keep up its operation. It does not have money to pay its employees and purchase fuel for its generations anymore. As a matter of fact, the director added, Haitel's employees have not received their salary for over five months.

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