ANSA McAL is ap­peal­ing a de­ci­sion by Bar­ba­dos High Court judge Jus­tice Sir Marston Gib­son to lift an in­junc­tion that blocked the sale of Bar­ba­dos' largest bev­er­age com­pa­ny, Banks Hold­ings Ltd (BHL).

"The com­pa­ny will be joined by sev­er­al oth­er BHL share­hold­ers who in­tend to bring a class ac­tion suit against BHL with a view to get­ting the '10 Put Op­tion' clause re­moved from the BHL/SLU agree­ment," pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of ANSA McAL (Bar­ba­dos) Nicholas Mout­tet said in a state­ment.

ANSA and dis­grun­tled BHL share­hold­ers ar­gue that the con­tro­ver­sial ex­it clause gives SLU, which is owned by Brazil­ian con­glom­er­ate Am­bev, an un­fair ad­van­tage in to take over through its St Lu­cia sub­sidiary, SLU Bev­er­ages Ltd.

ANSA McAl has al­so made a bid to for BHL and had sought an in­junc­tion on the BHL/Am­bev deal.

In ad­ver­tise­ments in Bar­ba­dos news­pa­pers, a group of con­cerned BHL share­hold­ers, who say they are "watch­ing and wait­ing" said they are skep­ti­cal about the Am­bev of­fer.

"We re­main com­mit­ted to sell­ing our shares for the best price pos­si­ble–but we will not be hood­winked to sell with­out ex­am­in­ing all the pros and cons of the buy­ers," the share­hold­ers said.