The Tribune

By FAY SIMMONS

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

CSCEC Bahamas Ltd. (CSCECB), CCA Bahamas Ltd. (CCAB), and CCA Construction, Inc. (CCA) filed the opening brief in their appeal of the trial court’s decision with the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court seeking the reversal of the “deeply flawed decision” to award Sarkis Izmirlian, Baha Mar’s original developer $1.6bn in damages for fraud.

The defendant in a document filed on December 20, 2024, said the New York court ignored “indisputable” evidence of BML’s gross mismanagement and overspending leading to driving the project “into the ground”.

They maintained that the judgement contains numerous and significant legal errors and should be reversed.

“As our appeal makes clear, the trial court disregarded black-letter New York law and ignored indisputable evidence that BMLP’s gross mismanagement, hundreds of millions of dollars in overspending and disastrous unilateral decision to put BML in bankruptcy drove the Baha Mar project into the ground, leaving a rash of unpaid debts to local subcontractors, vendors and the Bahamian government and ultimately resulting in BML’s liquidation by the Bahamian Supreme Court,” said the CCA spokesman.

“The fact that CCA Bahamas completed 97 percent of the project by the agreed deadline evidenced its good faith. The judgment suffers from numerous, significant legal errors and should be reversed in its entirety, as we believe it will be.”

The 61-page appeal brief argued several key points including CCAB coming “very, very close” to meeting the construction deadline and was at least 97 percent completed with the resort’s construction by March 27 2015.

They also argued that BML failed to meet its own responsibility to ensure the resort opened by March 27, 2015, and even CCA had completed the work the resort would not have been ready to open and would have operated at a loss for years leading to BML not being able to repay the billions owed to the bank.

Last month, CCA Construction Inc, the contractor’s New Jersey-based entity, sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US legal system to safeguard its assets and business from any attempt by Baha Mar’s original developer to enforce his near-total New York State Supreme Court triumph by seizing their property.

The Bahamian-domiciled entities also named as defendants in the New York action, CCA Bahamas and China State Construction and Engineering Construction (CSCEC) Bahamas, are not impacted by the Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing.

And The Tribune also understands that they, as well as the separate Bahamian incorporated entities that hold downtown Nassau’s British Colonial and Margaritaville Beach Resort, are not subject to any administration, receivership or liquidation-related proceedings before this nation’s Supreme Court - as had been threatened in previous CCA legal filings.

In an order filed on December 27, 2024, the bankruptcy court lifted the automatic stay, allowing CCA Construction to join in the New York appeals court case against the $1.6bn damages owed to Baha Mar’s original developer

In a statement, also filed with the New Jersey Bankruptcy court on 27, December, 2024, BML Properties Ltd noted that with an outstanding judgement of $1.6bn they are “by far” CCA Bahamas’s largest creditor and does not object to the automatic stay being lifted.

“CCA owes BMLP more than $1.6bn under an enforceable New York State court judgment, making BMLP by far the largest creditor of CCA,” said the court filings.

“After discussing changes to the proposed form of order with CCA’s proposed counsel and obtaining a commitment from counsel to provide BMLP with certain financial reporting, BMLP does not object to CCA’s request to modify the automatic stay to permit CCA to continue with the Appeal of the New York judgment.”

BML Properties in its statement accused CCA Bahamas of giving a “remarkably one-sided and incomplete picture” of the litigation during their first appearance in the New Jersey Bankruptcy Court.

The statement said CCA had not providing the 74-page verdict in which New York State Supreme Court judge Andrew Borrok awarded Mr Izmirilian and his family the full value of their original $845m equity investment in the New Providence mega resort project plus more than a decade’s worth of pre-judgment interest after finding CCA and its affiliates perpetrated “an absolute sham and shakedown” by providing “phony” completion dates to the New Jersey court.

BML Properties said it “has no doubt” they will be victorious in the New York Appeals Court and “vindicate its rights” in the Chapter 11 proceedings.