An international tribunal has ruled against the Government of Grenada in its fight to repurchase shares of the local electricity company GRENLEC.

The government and major GRENLEC shareholder WRB have been going head to head in court over demands by WRB that the government of Grenada buy back WRB’s 50% shares in GRENLEC.

In 2017, WRB claimed that the government breached the Share Purchase Agreement by passing a new Electricity Supply Act and a new Public Utilities Regulatory Commission Act, aimed at regulating the cost of electricity to consumers, with help from the World Bank through the ECERA project.

However, the government denied any wrongdoing and refused to buy back the shares at the asking price.

In the much-anticipated ruling, the Tribunal ruled that the government will have to pay more than the value of the shares to regain control of the company, a sum amounting up to more than US $70 million.

The Tribunal also ruled that the government will have to pay the legal fees of WRB.

Despite the ruling, the government has said that citizens may soon be able to pay less for electricity.

On Friday, a statement from the government said that the ruling presents a “golden opportunity for electricity consumers in Grenada to obtain cheaper electricity”.

The government maintains that it has no intention of running GRENLEC but instead will sell it to interested shareholders.

The Tribunal in giving its ruling followed the contract as was signed by the government of Grenada in 1994 during the Nicholas Braithwaite administration.