business@tribunemedia.net
FRIDAY, AUGUST 6, 2021
$5.10
$5.13
$5.17
$5.18
Cruise ship’s ‘arrest’ sparks $25m battle Ex-Luciano’s managers FORMER Luciano’s restaurant.
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
A
BAHAMIAN shipping agent is fighting to overturn a $25m “default judgment” stemming from the earlier “arrest” of a major cruise ship that brings thousands of visitors to this nation annually. ISS Freeport is now seeking a Supreme Court date for its bid to overturn the “interlocutory” judgment obtained on June 30, 2021, by the Grand Classica’s ultimate owner and operator, Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line, which is asserting that
• Ship agent fights Grand Classica default ruling • Cruise line: Affair derailed key COVID financing • Celebration sold at ‘bargain basement price’ GRAND CLASSICA
its vessel was “wrongfully” arrested while in Freeport earlier this year although it was subsequently freed and has resumed sailing since July. The cruise company is alleging that ISS “misled the court” in persuading it to issue an arrest warrant for the Grand Classica over debts owed to the Bahamian shipping agent, and other vendors/suppliers,
SEE PAGE 6
More Caribbean growth now on insurer’s ‘radar’
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
A BAHAMIAN insurer says “there is something on our radar” for further Caribbean expansion as it bids to cut its reliance on this nation to just 55-60 percent of its annual business activity. Anton Saunders, RoyalStar Assurance’s managing director, told Tribune Business that “we don’t want all our eggs in one basket” given the frequency and severity of hurricanes that property and casualty underwriters must now prepare to deal with on an annual basis. Declining to provide details on possible further growth beyond The Bahamas, given that RoyalStar is already present and writing business in territories such as the Cayman Islands,
• RoyalStar: ‘Don’t want our eggs in one basket’ • Aiming to reduce Bahamas to 55-60% of total • No longer home growth ‘by leaps and bounds’ Turks & Caicos, US Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands and Anguilla, he explained that the diversification drive means the company is not looking for expansion in its home territory “by leaps and bounds”. Disclosing that RoyalStar plans to undertake an analysis of its US Virgin Islands business to determine whether further expansion next year is warranted, Mr Saunders said all markets outside The Bahamas were performing well and meeting expectations bar Anguilla where it has yet to reach “critical mass”. “Our strategy is to diversify the business, so that
Credit unions brace for ‘heightened oversight’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
THE Central Bank has pledged that credit unions will be subjected to “heightened oversight” because they have “very minimal excess capital” with which to withstand a surge in COVIDrelated loan delinquencies. The regulator, in its Financial Stability Report for 2020, added that it was also keeping a particularly close eye on the sector because of its relatively large exposure to borrowers in the tourism industry, which is among the sectors hardest-hit by the
pandemic and still has thousands of employees either on furlough or reduced working hours. “Heightened oversight will be on credit unions, which operate with very minimal excess capital,” the Central Bank asserted. “After commercial banks, credit unions remained the second largest deposit-taking and loan granting institutions. “Prior to the pandemic, the sector operated with very narrow capital buffers in comparison to banks, and also more concentrated exposures in some cases to
SEE PAGE 4
Sunryse founder leaves following company’s sale By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
SUNRYSE Information Management’s founder was yesterday said to no longer be with the company he founded over two decades ago following its sale to a US-based provider. An employee at the Fire Trail Road-based business confirmed to Tribune Business that Chris Sawyer did not work for the firm when it called to inquire about Sunryse’s sale to Vital Records Control (VRC), an information management company based out of Memphis,
Tennessee. They answered the phone as “VRC”. This newspaper was informed that senior management control now resides in Tennessee, and that there was no one available to speak on the acquisition in The Bahamas. A VRC official promised to get someone to call back, but no response was received before press time. The deal was announced in a VRC press release earlier this week. Although it did not mention Sunryse by name, it referred to having “added its first international
SEE PAGE 7
only 55-60 percent of the business is in The Bahamas and the rest is throughout the Caribbean,” he told this newspaper. “We don’t want all our eggs in that basket.” Some observers will likely argue that The Bahamas’ growing economic and fiscal woes following Hurricane Dorian and COVID-19 may force, or encourage, local companies to seek growth and expansion opportunities outside this nation as a hedge against future problems at home. Mr Saunders, though, made no mention of this as a motivating factor for RoyalStar. Noting that The Bahamas still accounts for
65 percent of the property and casualty underwriter’s business, and the remainder of the Caribbean 35 percent, he said: “We have a little ways to go.” Asked about further expansion possibilities in the Caribbean, he added: “Let’s put it this way. If the opportunity is there, and our resources can handle it, we will look at it. There is something on our radar but we cannot speak definitively to it right now. We always keep things on our radar and if the opportunity is good we will look at it.” Tribune Business
SEE PAGE 5
get $74k compensation By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net TWO former restaurant managers at the now-closed Luciano’s have been awarded a combined $74,000 after the Industrial Tribunal found their exemployer in breach of the Employment Act’s redundancy provisions. Both Peter Stuart, a manager, and Roosevelt Pollard, an assistant manager, alleged they had not received any redundancy pay as required by law when they were each terminated in March 2020 just as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. Indira Demeritte-Francis, the Industrial Tribunal president, ruled that in both cases Luciano’s, which was majority owned and operated by George Myers’ Myers Group via its Restaurant Services subsidiary, had violated the Employment Act’s redundancy provisions and was liable to pay compensation to both men. “The respondent (Luciano’s), on making the applicant redundant, failed to make a payment of the redundancy pay to the applicant on or before the date of the employee’s redundancy, as required under Section 27B of the Employment (Amendment) Act 2017,” Mrs DemeritteFrancis wrote in her two separate rulings on the two cases. “Pursuant to Section 27B (1), the Tribunal is of the
Former restaurant breached law’s redundancy provisions view that it is a mandatory provision for payment of redundancy pay, and the respondent is in breach of their obligation to pay on or before the employee was made redundant by their own admission.” The Industrial Tribunal president added that Viola Major, an attorney with Harry B Sands & Lobosky, who was representing Luciano’s, admitted that her client was liable for dismissing both men and their redundancy payouts, and was not disputing the sums they were claiming. Stuart, who claimed to have been employed at Luciano’s from November 2004 on a $775 basic weekly wage, was awarded $39,000. Pollard, who alleged he was employed from June 2004 on a basic weekly wage of $675, received $35,100. Interest on both awards was set at ten percent until they were paid. Luciano’s was among the first confirmed corporate casualties of the COVID19 pandemic. In confirming its closure in May 2020, it warned that the virus will claim “more casualties” in the Bahamian dine-in restaurant industry after the pandemic put “the final nail in the coffin” for the
SEE PAGE 10