Minister of Tourism, Investments and Aviation Chester Cooper said yesterday he does not think a recent Baha Mar court ruling will have any impact on foreign direct investment in The Bahamas.
Cooper, who is also deputy prime minister, was asked to respond to a New York court judgment which found that Baha Mar’s original developer Sarkis Izmirlian lost the multi-billion-dollar project a decade ago due to fraud and breaches committed by its contractor, China Construction America (CCA).
Speaking to reporters outside Parliament, Cooper declined to get into specifics about the ruling but stressed that The Bahamas has a strong reputation of being investor-friendly.
“I won’t delve into those matters except to say The Bahamas has a longstanding track record of being an investor-friendly environment, first of all,” Cooper said.
“We expect foreign direct investments to continue at an all-time high as we see it at the moment having attracted more than $10 billion in foreign direct investments in the last two and a half years.
“The Bahamas is renowned [as being] an investor-friendly environment.
“Secondly, I don’t anticipate that this matter will have any impact on the operations of Baha Mar. I expect there to be business as usual.”
After facing a liquidity crisis in 2015, Izmirlian filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States.
In his ruling, Justice Andrew Borrok of the Supreme Court of the State of New York said credible evidence indicated that Izmirlian acted “honorably and commercially reasonably” in seeking to have the resort completed.
Izmirlian’s BML Properties Limited was awarded $1.6 billion against CCA as a result of the fraud and breaches.
On Tuesday, Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Chairman and Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell downplayed the ruling.
He also accused Izmirlian of “seeking to tell a narrative which does not line up with the facts”.
Mitchell urged Bahamians to be skeptical of the court ruling.
“This is not about politics,” he said. “The fact is, Baha Mar was a good thing for The Bahamas.”
Mitchell also attacked Free National Movement (FNM) Leader Michael Pintard who on Sunday called for an investigation into the inferences in the ruling that Bahamian government officials had colluded with CCA to push Izmirlian out.
The ruling outlines how the defendants used CCA consultant Leslie Bethel to access his father, Sir Baltron Bethel, then senior advisor to then-Prime Minister Perry Christie, in a bid to secure the government’s favor, and support in getting rid of BML.
“We’re concerned about the leader of the opposition, who jumps on a judgment, comments written by a judge in the United States,” said Mitchell in a video sent to The Nassau Guardian.
“When is the leader of the opposition going to support Bahamians and support The Bahamas?”
CCA has said it intends to appeal the judge’s “deeply flawed” ruling.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the Office of the Prime Minister said Prime Minister Philip Davis has directed Attorney General Ryan Pinder to conduct a review of the ruling.
The statement said Davis will await the advice of the Office of the Attorney General before making any further comments or decisions regarding the findings of the ruling.
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Publish date : 2024-10-24 00:34:00
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