The U.S. District Court of the NMI last Thursday ruled in favor of John K. Baldwin and Bridge Capital, and against the Government of the Lao People\u2019s Democratic Republic (the \u201cLao government\u201d) in a strongly worded opinion that questioned the Lao government\u2019s intent, noting that its claims were based on \u201clittle more than unsupported allegations of wrongdoing\u201d and finding that it was \u201cessentially motivated by bad faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
Northern Mariana Islands resident John K. Baldwin said, \u201cI am pleased by the ruling issued yesterday (Thursday) in which the court characterized the actions of the Lao government as \u201charassment\u201d and \u201ca fishing expedition.\u201d The court\u2019s ruling firmly rejected the Lao government\u2019s request on all grounds and this shows the world that this frivolous case against me and my company are without merit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The court questioned the Lao Government\u2019s intent, noting that its claims were based on \u201clittle more than unsupported allegations of wrongdoing\u201d and finding that it was \u201cessentially motivated by bad faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the favorable decisions for Bridge Capital and Baldwin, the court questioned whether the Lao government genuinely believed any of the claims it was raising, stating that, \u201cIt appears that Lao government\u2019s true intent is not to…support criminal… prosecution, but rather to use the [purported] criminal investigation to obtain discovery for the [civil dispute] proceedings\u201d further noting that the request was \u201cmore of a fishing expedition than a legitimate use of [the law].\u201d <\/p>\n
Further questioning the Lao government\u2019s motives, the court noted that the Lao government already \u201cgave up its criminal investigation\u201d and that it failed to initiate any prosecutorial action for years only applying \u201cfor discovery in aid of its [purported] criminal investigation after initiating the [civil dispute] …\u201d According to the court, that delay further undermined the Lao government\u2019s credibility and, \u201craise[d] doubts about the independence and good faith of that investigation\u201d\u2014a suspicion shared by a previous international arbitration tribunal.<\/p>\n
Characterizing the Lao government\u2019s allegations against Bridge Capital and Baldwin as flimsy pretexts, the court ultimately found that the Lao government\u2019s stated intent was merely a ruse.<\/p>\n
Baldwin added: \u201cUnfortunately, these types of unscrupulous tactics are nothing new for the Lao government.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lao government (a totalitarian communist regime where, according to Freedom House, one of the preeminent authorities on democracy and freedom, says \u201cthe rule of law… is highly compromised)\u201d was represented by Eric H. Cottrell of the North Carolina law firm Parker Poe, John D. Branson formerly of Parker Poe, and now of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, LLP, and William Fitzgerald, Lao\u2019s local counsel. According to the United States Department of State, Laos employs \u201c[o]fficials [who] often engage in corrupt practices with impunity.\u201d Threatening criminal prosecution without evidence of wrongdoing is just another tool employed by a repressive state renowned for \u201ccrush[ing] anything deemed to be a threat to its monopoly on power\u201d and regulating \u201cvirtually every facet of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cScholars such as Martin Stuart-Fox have written articles demonstrating that the Lao government wields allegations of criminal behavior as an effective device to intimidate or silence detractors,\u201d said Deborah Deitsch-Perez, counsel for Bridge and Baldwin in this matter.<\/p>\n
As Bridge Capital\u2019s briefing to the court shows, \u201cit is precisely because the businesses that Mr. Baldwin ran in Laos would not pay bribes that [the Lao government] trumped up false charges and abused U.S. law in an attempt to coerce Mr. Baldwin into abandoning efforts to require [the Lao government] to live up to its commitments.\u201d (PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The U.S. District Court of the NMI last Thursday ruled in favor of John K….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2943,5650,10860,7313],"class_list":["post-225169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-bridge-capital","tag-laos","tag-llp","tag-parker-poe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}