By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

BILLIONAIRE hedge fund manager Louis Bacon has called the release of private emails and sensitive banking information of Save The Bays (STB) an unlawful abuse of power that threatens the entire financial services industry.

In a lengthy statement, Mr Bacon said the public broadcast of unauthorised access to private financial and corporate information in Parliament was a “misguided act of political retaliation”.

He said he was shocked that his character would be villified and castigated by the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Members of Parliament despite the “disgusting disrespect” displayed by his Lyford Cay neighbour Peter Nygard.

Mr Bacon said: “Nassau has been a major offshore banking and funds management centre and nothing strikes worry in financial fiduciaries more than the intrusion and publication by political powers of supposedly private banking records and private organisational correspondence, a concern I share in.

“Never in a thousand years would I have thought it would be a sitting member of the Government of The Bahamas who would use unauthorised access to private financial and corporate information to try to destabilise me or an affiliated organisation by putting this information in the public record, on television!

“For such a politician to undermine the sanctity of personal, business and banking information and to do so as a misguided act of political retaliation, threatens the very foundations of commerce and foreign investment in The Bahamas.”

He continued: “I am actually stunned at the audacity of this lawlessness - a breach that threatens to cascade my fears broadly to international investors - a grave disservice to Bahamians.”

Mr Bacon said: “If I am wrong that his acts are illegal, then I do not think international investors realise how tenuous the sanctity of their personal, business or banking information is in The Bahamas if they run afoul of certain politicians or powerful individuals.”

Last week, Marathon MP Jerome Fitzgerald accused STB of being a political organisation seeking to “overthrow” the PLP government under the guise of an environmental group. Fox Hill MP Fred Mitchell further claimed that some $8.25m has been filtered through various organisations connected with STB - locally and internationally - from 2013 to 2015. Mr Fitzgerald referred to several private emails.

The disclosures came as part of a fierce political debate over claims included in a murder-for-hire lawsuit against the Canadian fashion mogul by Mr Bacon and several other STB directors.

“It is highly disturbing that certain Bahamian politicians are vigorously urging the further persecution of the already frightened Plaintiff-Victims in the harassment suit with wildly trumped up claims and allegations of small potential infractions in the way the discovery of the harassment proceeded,” he said, “a harassment suit that was filed in civil and not criminal court”.

In the lengthy rebuke, the billionaire hedge fund manager called the accusations that his group’s appeals to the courts to stop the years of harassment and intimidation by his Lyford Cay neighbour were a veiled attempt to overthrow the government “ludicrous”.

Mr Bacon furthered that “certain Bahamian political leaders are bewilderingly doing their utmost to silence the plaintiffs and any charitable organisations they belong to instead of going after the accused malefactor”. He welcomed calls for investigations by the FBI and the IRS, which he called “long overdue”, adding that it should be a bi-partisan initiative that covered all foreigners.

Mr Bacon also defended his charity, the Moore Charitable Foundation, as an organisation that prioritised environmental and educational giving. In addition to being a financial backer for STB, he said donated millions of dollars in the Bahamas including gifts to the Bahamas National Trust, Nature Conservancy Bahamas, BREEF, and the Rotary Club.

Mr Bacon said those donations dwarfed those that he gave to both political parties “in like amount in the low six figures” to the political campaigns of the PLP in 2007, and to the Free National Movement in 2012. He said that he gave money because, as a property owner and resident, he supported the environmental policies held by the leaders of the parties at the time.

He concluded: “I urge both parties to come together at a time when national unity would seem to be imperative, and focus on the national issues at hand that warrant a change of course in protecting the good name of The Bahamas - protecting individual rights domestically and that of investors in the international financial service industry - rather than focusing on internecine score-settling.”