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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2022
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Hyatt warned Sarkis: ‘You’ll never meet opening target’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net SARKIS Izmirlian received more than three months’ warning from his major resort partner that it would only begin accepting bookings from June 1, 2015, as the resort’s target opening was “not a viable option”. Hyatt’s alarm-sounding letter is among a batch of previously undisclosed documents revealed by China Construction America (CCA) in its bid to prove that Baha Mar’s original developer had known for months - even years - that the revised March 27, 2015, opening deadline would be impossible to achieve. However, some of the evidence the Chinese stateowned contractor is relying upon appears to torpedo its own case - and strengthen Mr Izmirlian’s $2.25bn fraud and breach of contract claim before the New York state courts - as it reveals CCA was
And Baha Mar’s own December 2014 monthly construction progress report, written just one month after Mr Izmirlian agreed to release $54m to the Chinese contractor to resolve their payment dispute, discloses that CCA’s completion schedules were already “in direct contradiction” to the November Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the two parties. “CCA do not appear to be abiding by their commitment as outlined in the November 17, 2014, MoU... although Baha Mar have honoured their part of the accord in the
SARKIS IZMIRLIAN payment of funds to CCA in order to resolve the outstanding commercial disputes to CCA’s satisfaction,” Baha Mar’s report stated. “In short it is Baha Mar’s opinion that there is little evidence of the paradigm shift in CCA’s overall performance that is required in order for CCA to up hold their commitment to achieve ‘substantial completion and to achieve operational start for paying guests in hotels including
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Property insurance costs ‘no doubt’ higher in 2023 By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net BAHAMIAN families and businesses were yesterday warned that property insurance costs will “no doubt be higher” in 2023 even though the country “dodged a bullet” with Hurricane Nicole. Patrick Ward, Bahamas First’s president and chief
executive, told Tribune Business the only issue is “by how much” premium prices for property-related catastrophe cover will rise as a result of the “hard” reinsurance market conditions faced by local underwriters and counterparts throughout the global. Asserting that the increases are largely beyond the control of Bahamian insurers,
he explained that the main driver is reinsurance demand outstripping supply at a time when the market was already cutting back its exposure to hurricane-prone nations in the Caribbean and wider region. Local property and casualty underwriters are currently in the middle of negotiations to acquire sufficient reinsurance in time to renew these
treaties for January 1, 2023. As a result, Mr Ward told this newspaper it was too early to determine the extent of next year’s insurance premium hikes for Bahamian consumers as the industry was still working to pin down its own costs. The prospect of further cost increases is among a
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UN’s tax mandate vote may end ‘gallows walk’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE BAHAMAS may have “some light on the horizon” in its tax battles against the European Union (EU) and Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) via a new United Nations (UN) resolution. The resolution, voted on Wednesday, paves the way to potentially wrest control of international tax policy from the OECD and developed countries by creating a pathway for a UN convention on taxation and a new global tax body.
PAUL MOSS This is something present Cabinet ministers such as Alfred Sears KC, minister of works and utilities, have been urging for years while in private practice as it would provide a fairer forum for resolving
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Salvation Army in Sand Dollar boost By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net THE SALVATION Army yesterday announced that it will be accepting Christmas donations via the Sand Dollar, the Bahamian digital currency, with help from Omni Financial Group. Roodolph Meo, divisional commander of the Salvation Army in The Bahamas, told Tribune Business that despite the Central Bank’s commitment to any donation paid dollar for dollar with the digital currency they still
need more help on the ground. “We need more volunteers. We usually have around 35 volunteers, but we only have 25. We need ten more to man the stations around the island, including people on Grand Bahama and Eleuthera,” he said. “Donations are coming slowly this year, but we continue to trust the Bahamian people as they have come through for us last year, and we believe they will come through for us again this year with the $250,000. This Sand Dollar
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Sir Frankyn: FTX is ‘not our first rodeo’ • Recalls similarities with Commodore Computers • Blasts Opposition on ‘brownie points’: ‘Must unite’ • Pintard: Criticism ‘off-base’; we’re filling a vaccum
• Multiple alarms over Baha Mar’s March 27 miss • Yet CCA’s undermines itself with own evidence • ‘Consistent failure’: Contractor off-target by year not “achieving the revised targets” agreed by the parties in November 2014 as they sought to get the Cable Beach mega resort back on track. In particular, a February 2, 2015, report by Martyn Bould, chairman of Rider, Levett, Bucknall (Caribbean), project monitor for the China Export-Import Bank, Baha Mar’s then-$2.45bn financier, said there had been “a consistent failure” by CCA to meet its schedule such that there was a “strong likelihood” that substantial construction completion of the resort’s core could be delayed by a full year.
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By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A well-known businessman yesterday urged the Bahamas to “stand united” in the face of FTX’s implosion as he blasted the Opposition’s leader for trying to “score cheap political brownie points” over the affair. Sir Franklyn Wilson, the Arawak Homes and Sunshine Holdings chairman, told Tribune Business that some of Michael Pintard’s comments were “worthy of condemnation” as he warned that a divided political leadership will make it much harder for The Bahamas to withstand international criticism over the crypto exchange’s failure. Arguing that the Free National Movement (FNM) leader was effectively now shunning a digital assets regulatory regime that was passed, and implemented, by an administration in which he was a Cabinet minister, Sir Franklyn said FTX was not The Bahamas’ “first rodeo” when it came to high-profile cross-border corporate failures on an international scale. Recalling his appointment as liquidator for Commodore Computers, which in the 1980s and early 1990s was arguably that industry’s biggest name, Sir Franklyn said himself and his attorney, the late Paul Adderley, were able to reach an agreement with US creditors over how the company was to be wound-up. Noting that FTX’s Bahamian courtappointed provisional liquidators face the same situation today, namely competition for control and assets with the group’s USappointed chief executive and Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, he added that this nation must ensure the outside world sees only “competence” from its judges, attorneys and
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