By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Chief Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

ATTORNEY General Ryan Pinder said he is not concerned about potential job losses at two Nassau resorts after a New York court rejected their owners’ bid to prevent Sarkis Izmirlian from enforcing a $1.6bn damages award.

Mr Pinder’s comments followed a ruling by The New York State Supreme Court’s appeals division overturning a temporary injunction previously obtained by China Construction America (CCA) and its affiliates. 

The injunction had barred Mr Izmirlian, Baha Mar’s original developer, from enforcing the judgment he won against CCA, the project’s contractor.

In October, New York State Supreme Court Judge Andrew Borrok ruled in favour of Mr Izmirlian, finding that CCA had acted in bad faith by misleading him about the Baha Mar project’s completion timeline, which led to its 2015 bankruptcy. 

Judge Borrok described the construction delays and mismanagement as “an absolute sham and shakedown” that triggered the financial collapse.

CCA and its subsidiaries have previously warned that without a stay or injunction on Mr Izmirlian’s ability to enforce his damages award, they may be forced to file for bankruptcy and liquidation in the US and The Bahamas, respectively.

Such a move could affect downtown Nassau’s British Colonial and Margaritaville Beach resorts, which are owned by CCA (Bahamas) and represent the Chinese construction company’s major assets.

Asked if he was concerned about jobs at the hotels in light of that ruling, Mr Pinder said the government was not worried about the ruling’s impact, as the government “has to be involved” in any developments that take place.

“We’re not concerned,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the official opening of the Family Court. 

“The government has the mind of the Bahamian people first and foremost. Whatever happens, the government has to be involved in the process and, ultimately, they have to come to government to effect any kind of order or any kind of result that they achieve, and the government –– when they approach that –– they will approach that with the mindset of Bahamians first,” Mr Pinder said.

He added that his office’s review of the original verdict that awarded Mr Izmirlian his $1.6bn has not uncovered anything for the government to be concerned about.

This comes despite the judge ruling that “evidence establishes” the $2.3m paid by CCA to Notarc Management Group was intended to “curry favour” and “gain access” to former Prime Minister Perry Christie’s senior policy advisor and the Bahamian government during the peak of the Baha Mar dispute.

The ruling’s findings renewed concerns about the then-Christie administration’s handling of the Baha Mar dispute and the broader implications for governance in The Bahamas, prompting opposition calls for an independent investigation into the allegations.

“We have reviewed the ruling,” Mr Pinder said. “We don’t see any instances in the ruling that would really point to anything that the government should be concerned about, and that was the first ruling, so we’ll review the court of appeal ruling that just came down and see if that has any implications.” 

In a statement to The Tribune on Friday, a spokesperson for the co-defendants, said: “This ruling has no bearing on the merits of our case and will not deter us from seeking to have the trial court’s error-ridden decision overturned on appeal. 

The statement continued: "As we intend to show, the lower court failed to apply well established principles of New York law and disregarded clear evidence that BML Properties grossly mismanaged the Baha Mar project and then drove it into a wrongful, secret bankruptcy to eliminate its obligations to other stakeholders, including the government and people of The Bahamas.”