By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

An insurance executive, who sought a $50,000 “financial hardship” payment from an agency/brokerage that was part of a group chaired by Sebas Bastian, now the PLP’s Fort Charlotte candidate, has seen her demand rejected by the Supreme Court.

The September 30, 2025, verdict by Justice Simone Fitzcharles detailed a wider battle between Kim Rahming and BMG Insurance Agents & Brokers that had already resulted in the latter agreeing to pay her $30,000 for unfair dismissal plus $15,000 in legal fees. BMG stands for Brickell Management Group, the entity with real estate, financial services and other interests that is headed Mr Bastian, the Island Luck co-founder.

However, the two sides have yet to settle the remaining item in their ‘Consent Order’, which required that an ‘account’ be done by the Supreme Court’s deputy registrar of the commissions that Ms Rahming claimed were due under her now-terminated employment contract with BMG Insurance Agents & Brokers. She is alleging that she is owed some $100,000 in commission on insurance business brought to the company.

Justice Fitzcharles, in her judgment, noted that a dispute had erupted after the June 20, 2021, consent Order was made over whether “an alleged variation” made to Ms Rahming’s employment should be placed before the deputy registrar, who had purportedly stated that “all cards should be placed on the table by both sides” during a May 4, 2022, hearing.

BMG Insurance Agents & Brokers is arguing that a 2017 change to Ms Rahming’s employment contract meant she no longer earned commissions on insurance business received from related parties within the BMG group as “she would not have done any work” to win it and bring it to the company. As a result, it is asserting that any commission owed to her is “negligible”.

Ms Rahming, alleging that her former employer is “owned by multi-millionaire moguls of the gaming industry”, claimed she was “experiencing financial hardship” and struggling to pay her child’s tuition and college expenses due to the dispute and non-payment of the $100,000 commissions purportedly owed to her.  This sparked the claim for a $50,000 “interim” payment to be made to her to alleviate these financial struggles.

Ms Rahming, according to the Supreme Court’s verdict, launched her claim for wrongful and/or unfair dismissal on October 26, 2020, after being employed by BMG Insurance Agents & Brokers from November 18, 2015, to September 24, 2020. She was hired as an account executive to sell insurance products.

The June 20, 2021, consent Order, which saw the insurance agency make the $30,000 and $15,000 payments to Ms Rahming for “unfair dismissal” and her legal fees, also required it to provide the Supreme Court’s deputy registrar with “an account of all premiums paid… for new business and business within the BMG Group” for the period she was employed along with supporting vouchers.

The Order referred to 5 percent commissions on premiums relating to “new business”; 3 percent on renewals and 1 percent for renewals within the BMG Group. However, the two sides are disputing whether an accounting should take place under the terms of Ms Rahming’s initial employment contract or the 2017 “variation” that excluded her from earning commissions on BMG Group-related business. Apart from its construction and real estate development-related activities, BMG is also involved in financial services via Investar Securities.

“The claimant has stated in her evidence that she is experiencing financial hardship as a result of the ‘defendant's withholding since 2020 of her commissions earned and due to her’,” Justice Fitzcharles wrote. 

“She states that she is responsible for paying a portion of the tuition and related college expenses for her child, and her means of doing so are meagre since she lost her position with the defendant. She opines that pursuant to her contract of employment with the defendant she is owed over $100.000 in commissions up to the time of her dismissal. She seeks an interim payment from the defendant of $50,000.”

However, the judge said of BMG Insurance Agents & Brokers’ position: “The defendant compromised a part of the claim, and paid the claimant $30,000 in settling her unfair dismissal claim. The defendant also paid the claimant legal costs in the amount of $15,000, and has agreed that there be an assessment of the quantum of commissions due and owing under the contract of 18 November, 2015, between the plaintiff and the defendant. 

“In this application, the defendant has indicated that it has paid the plaintiff all commissions due to her, and the plaintiff accepted payment pursuant to a new agreement in 2017 by which the contract dated 18 November, 2015, was amended to exclude commissions for insurance business within the BMG Group.”

Ms Rahming, in her supporting affidavit, alleged that BMG Insurance Agents & Brokers had not denied that commissions were due and owing to her. And the company was” owned by Bahamian multi-millionaire moguls of the gaming industry of considerable wealth and resources. The claimant is a wife and mother and of relatively meagre means.

“The minor child of the claimant is still attending college abroad and the claimant bears some of the financial responsibility for the tuition and related college expenses of that child,” Justice Fitzcharles noted of her arguments. 

“When the claimant was wrongfully dismissed, the defendant deprived her of her commissions since 2020. The withholding of the commissions has caused the claimant financial hardship. Under the contract of employment dated 18 November, 2015, the defendant owes the claimant over $100,000 in commissions from the date of her contract until her employment was wrongfully terminated.”

Ms Rahming argued that her circumstances met the requirements to obtain an interim payment. However, BMG Insurance Agents & Brokers countered that whether it was owned by ‘Bahamian multi-millionaire moguls’ was “immaterial”, and argued that any “hardship” she had suffered resulted from her “unreasonable position” in not allowing the matter to proceed to the hearing before the Supreme Court’s deputy registrar.

“The main issues between the parties centre around a 2015 agreement that allowed the claimant to earn commission based on related businesses that were insured with the defendant,” BMG Insurance Agents & Brokers added. “Shortly after this contract was signed it was decided based on common sense and the practice in the insurance industry that the claimant should not earn commission on businesses related to the defendants and its principals as she would not have done any work to bring in those businesses. 

“For BMG-related business, the claimant would not have used any industry or efforts to bring that insurance business in to the defendant. The record shows that commissions that the claimant received were always paid on the basis of the 2017 agreement and the understanding that commissions would not be paid on BMG-related businesses.

“The position of the defendant is that if commission is owed to the claimant, it would be very negligible having regard to monies that the claimant owes the defendant for an insurance policy. The defendant's claim for outstanding monies under the insurance policy,

and the unnecessary legal costs it has incurred, would have to be set off and subtracted before a determination can be made as to what if any commission is owed to the claimant.”

Justice Fitzcharles, siding with BMG Insurance Agents & Brokers, rejected Ms Rahming’s bid for an interim payment on the basis that multiple issues need to be properly determined by the Supreme Court - via a trial with witnesses - to determine if she is owed commissions and, if so, how much. 

“What may amount to fairly voluminous contested evidence of competing accounts will have to be evaluated by the court with a keen eye,” the judge concluded. “The appropriate time for doing so is during the hearing of the taking of the account. 

“These unresolved issues impede the court's ability at this point to be satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that the claimant would obtain an award for commissions. In the circumstances, the parties must abide the outcome of the hearing to take an account amongst them.”