The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

CANADIAN fashion mogul Peter Nygard wants to petition the Privy Council to reverse the striking out of his appeal of a contempt of court conviction for breaching a court order prohibiting him from engaging in any illegal dredging near his Lyford Cay home.

Nygard wants the London-based tribunal to set aside the Court of Appeal's decision to effectively affirm his convictions for dredging the sea bed near Nygard Cay between March and April 2015, and again in October of 2016, despite an injunction prohibiting him from doing so.

In particular, Nygard wants said relief under the conditions that he, within a period not exceeding 90 days from the date of the hearing of his application, enter into "good and sufficient security" to the "satisfaction of the court" in a sum not exceeding $2,861 for the "due prosecution of the appeal".

Nygard says he wants that condition to also apply to the "payment of all costs as may become payable" in the event of himself not obtaining an order granting final leave to appeal or of the appeal being dismissed for "non-prosecution", or of the Privy Council ordering him to pay costs of the appeal.

In July of last year, retired Justice Rhonda Bain found Nygard guilty for the third time for breaching her June 2013 order prohibiting him from engaging in any illegal dredging near his Simms Point/Nygard Cay property.

That came just over a year after Justice Bain convicted and fined Nygard $50,000 for breaching her injunction sometime in December 2014.

If the fine was not paid by March 21, 2017, Nygard faced 14 days in prison. He was further ordered to remove the excavated sand and return it to Jaws Beach by April 7, 2017 or face an additional $50,000 fine and a $1,000 fine for each day that order is not adhered to.

Nygard paid the fine before the specified deadline, but has since appealed that ruling.

On October 1, the tribunal of appellate President Sir Hartman Longley, Justices Jon Isaacs and Stella Crane-Scott dismissed Nygard's appeal of his 2018 conviction because he hadn't obtained leave to launch the appeal. As a result, Nygard was ordered to pay the legal costs for the Coalition to Protect Clifton Bay, one of the respondents in the matter.

In a notice of motion filed the day after, which was obtained by The Tribune, Nygard asserts that the appellate judges were wrong in both fact and law in failing to hold that the appellate court was "functus officio" - having served its purpose - and that the matters were "res judicata", or already adjudicated on.

Nygard asserts that the appellate court, without "regard" to his view on whether leave was needed to appeal Justice Bain's decision, and in the exercise of its "inherent jurisdiction", gave its decision on the "very same application and issues" on May 2 of this year.

Nygard's appeal stems from his ongoing battle with the Coalition over allegations the construction/development activities at his Lyford Cay home have led to a substantial growth of the property.

The group claims Nygard has almost doubled the size of his property, from 3.25 acres to 6.1 acres since he acquired it in 1984, by allegedly reclaiming Crown land from the sea.