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MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2025
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‘Preying upon Bahamians”: Shaq seeking $5m damages By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A BAHAMIAN entrepreneur is seeking more than $5m in damages from his former US business partner who he is accusing of “preying” upon himself and others to launch illegal “fronting” operations in industries reserved solely for local ownership. Julian ‘Shaq’ Gibson, operator of the well-known Briland-based Conch & Coconut tour operator, destination management and visitor “concierge” business, is also seeking a Supreme Court declaration that Pablo Conde and his US-based companies “be enjoined and/or prevented with immediate effect from operating in any form in The Commonwealth of The Bahamas”. His promised legal action, launched in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, September 10, hits back at Mr Conde’s own lawsuit against himself - filed just five days earlier in the south Florida federal court - by seeking to turn the tables on his former US partner through blaming him for Conch & Coconut accruing more than $1m in unpaid tax arrears in The Bahamas. Mr Gibson’s legal action describes a classic ‘fronting’ arrangement where all customer payments were made offshore, and allegedly kept out of reach of the Bahamian tax authorities by Mr Conde, while he ran the on-the-ground operation in Harbour Island.
t 8BOUT GPSNFS 64 QBSUOFS CBSSFE GSPN #BIBNBT t "MMFHFT AQSFTTVSFE JOUP EFBM CFGPSF 1. NFFUJOH t $PODI $PDPOVU DIJFG 1JOL 4BOE BMTP B AGSPOU Accusing his ex-business partner of “preying on young, ambitious” Bahamians such as himself “with a promise of longterm reward” so that he could establish businesses in industries exclusively reserved for local ownership only under the National Investment Policy, Mr Gibson asserted that he tried to work with Mr Conde to bring Conch & Coconut into compliance with this nation’s laws following the 2023 raid by the Department of Inland Revenue that seized some of the company’s assets and temporarily shut it down. He alleged that he was “pressured” into signing an October 2023 agreement by Mr Conde, which the latter previously claimed would have resulted in Conch & Coconut and its Bahamasbased assets being acquired by Mr Gibson, ahead of a meeting his former business partner had purportedly “arranged” with Prime Minister Philip Davis KC. The legal filings did not confirm if this meeting took place, and what was discussed, but Mr Gibson also alleged that the Pink Sand Spirits liquor/drinks brand was a second ‘fronting’ operation that Mr Conde asked him to form with
REBUTTAL - See Page B6
ILLEGAL workers rounded up from the Royal Beach Club workforce.
Royal Caribbean pledges to ‘uphold highest standards’ following Immigration raid By FAY SIMMONS Tribune Business Reporter jsimmons@tribunemedia.net ROYAL Caribbean yesterday pledged to “uphold the highest standards” and asserted that the two construction workers found to have expired work permits by an Immigration raid account for “less than 1 percent” of its Royal Beach Club workforce.
Philip Simon, the cruise line’s top Bahamian executive, told Tribune Business that it was working with its contractors and subcontractors to ensure their workforces fully comply with all Bahamian Immigration and labour laws after 21 construction workers were apprehended on Thursday at the Paradise
DETAINED - See Page B8
Briland tourism business in ‘maximum’ $320k fine By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A BRILAND tourism business was hit with a $320,000 “maximum penalty” for its failure to pay more than $800,000 in due VAT and Business Licence fees over the five years to end-March 2023. The Department of Inland Revenue’s (DIR) ten-page report on its audit of Conch & Coconut Ltd, which has been disclosed in Supreme Court filings due to the bust-up
between its Bahamian and US partners (see other article on Page 1B), reveals that the boat, golf cart rental and tour and “concierge” provider submitted less than 30 percent of mandatory quarterly VAT filings during that period. La Paige Gardiner, a Department of Inland Revenue official, in a June 2023 letter sent to Julian ‘Shaq’ Gibson, Conch & Coconut’s Bahamian principal, said given “the degree of
PENALTIES - See Page B7
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Labour chief told sister’s ex-worker: ‘No money for you’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Government’s former labour chief told a terminated worker “there’s no money for you” when she pursued her legal rights to obtain due severance pay from her exemployer - his ROBERT sister. FARQUHARSON Robert Farquharson, the ex-Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union (BCOU) president who is now head of the Ministry of Labour’s special projects unit, also told Jennifer Rolle to return to work for Abby’s Catering, a business run by Euris FarquharsonMorrison, despite it losing the contract to operate Queen’s College’s Q Cafe. Details of the phone call between Mr Farquharson and Ms Rolle, which took place in October 2022, were disclosed in a September 1, 2025, Industrial Tribunal verdict which awarded the latter a total $6,360. Besides $4,360 of redundancy pay for the 8.72 years spent with Abby’s Catering, Sharada Ferguson, the Tribunal’s vice-president, ordered that the company pay her an extra $1,500 - or one
TRIBUNAL - See Page B9