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TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 2023
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‘Utter amazement’: Ex-PMs trade Oban blame • Christie: $5.5bn deal was ‘dead’ when I left office • Says principals never produced proof of financing • Minnis: PLP left oil refinery ‘prepared, ready to go’
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
PERRY Christie says he is “utterly amazed” that Dr Hubert Minnis would blame his administration for flawed due diligence on the $5.5bn Oban Energies project given that the deal “was dead” when he left office in 2017. The former PLP leader, in an interview with Tribune Business, said the controversial Grand
Bahama oil refinery and storage terminal project “never went anywhere” before his administration was voted out of office on May 2017 because its promoters could not provide proof they had assembled the necessary financing. He spoke out after Dr Minnis, repeating assertions he made in the House of Assembly late last year, said that while his administration took the blame it was its Christie-led predecessor that failed to conduct the necessary
due diligence and proper scrutiny on Oban and the background of its key principals. The ex-FNM leader said the last Christie administration had left “Oban prepared and ready to go”, and all that was required was the Heads of Agreement to be signed, implying that his mistake was to rely on his predecessor completing the required checks via the Bahamas Investment Authority (BIA) and other government entities.
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PERRY CHRISTIE
DR. HUBERT MINNIS
FTX US chief bids to cut-off Bahamas FTX: US interfering By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net FTX’s US chief yesterday shattered the temporary ceasefire with the Bahamian provisional liquidators by launching a legal bid to deny them access to any assets caught in the crypto exchange’s multi-billion dollar collapse. John Ray, in a lawsuit filed in the Delaware Bankruptcy Court, made clear his intent to seize control of liquidation proceedings by describing FTX Digital Markets, the Bahamian subsidiary, as an “economic and legal nullity” that served merely as an “offshore front” to enable Sam Bankman-Fried and his closest associates to channel proceeds from their purported fraud away from US regulatory oversight. Asserting that FTX Digital Markets “never earned a dollar of third party revenue”, the head of 134 FTX-related companies presently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, is seeking declaratory judgments in the US that the Bahamian subsidiary and its liquidators have “no ownership” interest in or rights to the crypto/ digital assets, fiat currency and intellectual property claimed by those entities in his control.
with $45m Bahamas recovery
• Ray aims to deny assets to local liquidators • Bahamas entity ‘economic and legal nullity’ • Lawsuit attacks PM, AG and Commission And, in a further attempt to cut the Bahamian liquidation proceedings off from any assets, Mr Ray also wants the Delaware Bankruptcy Court to find that all asset transfers to FTX Digital Markets “are voidable actual or constructive frauds” and that his team be permitted to recover them. He also repeated previous attempts to tarnish The Bahamas’ integrity and reputation, asserting that Mr Bankman-Fried sought to “leverage” what was described as a “close, accommodating relationship” with Prime Minister Philip Davis KC, Ryan Pinder KC, the attorney general, and the Securities Commission to help “minimise his exposure” should FTX’s alleged
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
JOHN RAY fraud be uncovered. All three have vehemently refuted such allegations in the past. The legal action, which names FTX Digital Markets as well as the three Bahamian joint provisional liquidators - Brian Simms KC, the Lennox Paton senior partner, and the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) accounting duo of Kevin Cambridge and Peter Greaves - as defendants was seemingly filed in an attempt to head-off an imminent application by the trio to the Delaware Bankruptcy Court’s Judge John Dorsey. For the Bahamian liquidators, who had submitted their legal filings
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Tourism Bill withdrawn on consultation worry By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net MULTIPLE tourism industry stakeholders yesterday said they had not seen or been consulted on draft legislation that was pulled from House of Assembly debate amid fears it would spark a fall
in vacation rental room inventory. The Bill to place the Tourism Development Corporation on a legal, statutory funding, and facilitate the creation of a Tourism Development Fund, was withdrawn at the last minute for further consultation after concerns were raised by the newlyformed Bahamas Vacation
Rental Association about its potential impact. Theofanis Cochinamogulos, the Association’s interim president, in a March 19, 2023, letter that was addressed to House of Assembly speaker, Patricia Deveaux, along with Obie Wilchcombe, leader of government business, said the Bill had no support from his members because
there had been no consultation with the industry. “Unfortunately, the Bill scheduled for debate tomorrow, Monday, March 20, 2023, lacks the support of the hundreds of vacation rental hosts as there was no consultation with us,” he wrote. “We crave your indulgence, and that of the leader of government
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FTX wind-up faces stall absent ‘claw back’ rule By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net FTX’s Bahamian liquidators say they need the Supreme Court to determine who the local subsidiary’s customers truly are so they can “claw back” preferential payments and prevent the winding-up from “stalling”. Brian Simms KC, the Lennox Paton senior partner, in a March 15, 2023, affidavit said it was
“crucially important” to the progress of himself and his co-provisional liquidators that the Chief Justice Sir Ian Winder be able to give “directions” on several “core fundamental issues”. He and the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) accounting duo of Kevin Cambridge and Peter Greaves are presently seeking to ensure that any “directions” ruling does not violate the freezing order imposed by the
Delaware Bankruptcy Court when FTX’s nonBahamian entities were placed in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (see other article Page 1B), as any breach could result in sanctions and penalties being imposed on US-based assets belonging to FTX Digital Markets. That is the Bahamian subsidiary that Mr Simms and the PwC duo are winding-up under the Supreme Court’s supervision. Among the key issues
that Sir Ian will be asked to determine is which “terms of service”, which governed the relationship between FTX’s international platform and its customers, apply and on what date - as this is critical to working out when, and if, clients were migrated to FTX Digital Markets and became its customers. Another vital issue that Sir Ian will be asked to decide is whether FTX
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FTX’s Bahamian liquidators are accusing their US counterparts of interfering with a $45m stablecoin recovery and failing to preserve the value of the collapsed crypto exchange’s $241m local real estate empire. White & Case, the Bahamian trio’s US attorneys, in a March 13, 2023, letter to legal representatives for John Ray, the FTX US chief, asserted that the latter and his team have failed to live up to their obligations under the January 6 co-operation agreement that previously ended open hostilities between the two sides. While battle recommenced yesterday (see other article Page 1B), those acting for Brian Simms KC, the Lennox Paton senior partner, and the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) accounting duo
BRIAN SIMMS KC of Kevin Cambridge and Peter Greaves, also accused Mr Ray’s team of denying the trio access to critical data and messages vital to progressing the winding-up of FTX Digital Markets, the Bahamian subsidiary. Brian Pfeiffer, of White & Case, cited four instances where Mr Ray and his team had breached their deal with his clients, as he wrote: “Regrettably, while the joint provisional liquidators have lived up to their obligations under the
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