Prime Minister Gaston Browne says he will ensure that Vere Bird III pays court-ordered costs after the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal dismissed Bird’s defamation lawsuit against him.

Browne made the remarks on his weekly _Browne and Browne Show_ after the appellate court upheld an earlier High Court ruling that his statements about Bird were “true, justified, and fair.”

The case stemmed from Browne’s claim that Bird, son of the late Vere Bird Jr., benefited from an illegitimate Cabinet decision to acquire crown lands at a concessional rate of $25,000 an acre — a policy reserved for parliamentarians. Bird denied the allegation and sued for defamation, arguing that he never received the land and that the Cabinet decision was legitimate.

In April 2023, the High Court dismissed Bird’s claim. He appealed on 16 grounds, but in September 2025 the Court of Appeal unanimously rejected his arguments and affirmed the ruling. Both courts awarded costs to Browne.

“I have won many cases and not collected costs, but if there’s one person that I’m going to insist pays, it’s [Vere] III,” Browne said on the program.

The prime minister recalled that Bird’s father had approached him in 2003 to support his son’s request for land under the concessional program. Browne said the Cabinet decision was improperly engineered, as Bird III was not a parliamentarian and lived primarily in New York at the time.

The appeal court’s decision marks the end of the long-running dispute, unless Bird seeks to escalate the case further to the Privy Council.