Last month, we told you about the pending court battle between the two mega cruise tourism interests: Stakebank/Port Coral and the Port of Magical Belize.
As viewers are aware, the Port Coral investment is owned by developer Mike Feinstein and his family. Construction for that multi-million dollar facility is well underway. In legal documents we've seen, the Feinstein group asserts that they have already invested upwards of 50 million dollars toward its completion.
Then, there's the proposed Port of Magical Belize. That's a cruise facility which businessman David Gegg and his partners behind Portico Enterprise Limited want to build some 6 kilometers south of the Sibun River in the Belize District.
The principals behind Port Coral have gone to the court to complain that the National Environmental Appraisal Committee and the Department of Environment did not make a sound decision when they gave the necessary environmental approval for Magical Belize to proceed to the next phase of development.
They are now trying to convince the Supreme Court to reverse that approval and quash that decision by the DOE and the NEAC.
In an affidavit to convince the court for leave, Port Coral says, quote, "Notwithstanding the deleterious and irreparable harm to the Applicant's economic interest, investment and significant harm to the environment surrounding Port Coral and the Belize barrier reef on a whole, the Respondents have approved the Port of Magical Belize project to proceed without any meaningful consultation with the Applicant."
This morning, Justice Lisa Shoman delivered a decision in a virtual hearing in which she granted the applicants permission to bring their judicial review case. After listening to arguments from all the parties involved in this lawsuit, she agreed that Port Coral has an arguable case on several grounds including legitimate expectation, an appearance of bias, and bad faith.
This afternoon, we got a chance to speak with the legal team that is representing the Feinstein group. Here's what they had to say about the successful arguments for leave to bring their case:
William Lindo Jr., Attorney for Stakebank/Port Coral
"Fundamentally what we say is that if you want to give clearance to someone else, a competitor, at the very least it was incumbent on the government through whichever department it is to engage in consultation with Stakebank Enterprises to say well listen we are now considering this other project, let's see how it will affect you. Now on the ground of appearance of bias, the individual, his firm Dr. Careas who had written the EIA for Port of Magical Belize happens to be the nephew of the chief environmental officer Mr. Martin Allegria. What we are saying is that on the face of it there is an appearance of bias. We are not saying there is actual bias of anything untoward, but just looking at it, it looks bad. Here it is you have the uncle being the chief environmental officer who also happens to sit on the national environmental appraisal committee, that body grants the recommendation whether or not a project will be approved."
"The court agree with us because of that familiar relationship between Mr. Allegria and Dr. Careas that there is an appearance of bias which needs to be investigated further. On the ground of bad faith we have, before environmental clearance was granted Mr. Godfrey wrote to the chairman of the national appraisal committee Dr. Williams asking him to before considering Portico project any further to engage with us, allow Stakebank to make representation. The answer that were met with is that environmental clearance was granted a few weeks later. That we say is bad faith. The ports commissioner had also written to the department of the environment in January saying listen we are aware that you are considering another port, before you grant any clearance, allow time to develop a national ports policy. Department of environment did not take that into consideration and proceeded to grant clearance."
A month ago, Prime Minister John Briceno appeared as a guest on UNCUT and said that legally, the Government isn't allowed to play favorites and simply pick one of the projects to support. He said that the market will decide which one of these ports would succeed. So today, we asked the attorneys representing Stakebank about a potential marketplace where both of these projects needed to compete against each other for commercial success. Here's how they answered that question.
William Lindo Jr., Attorney for Stakebank/Port Coral
"Port Coral, because of the legitimate expectation they have a right to be consulted. Now, their argument is that listen Belize District is too small to accommodate 2 cruise ports. We don't have the infrastructural capacity and it is not viable for 2 cruise ports to operate in such close proximity to each other. If one goes ahead, that's fine. But if 2 then both will fail. that's Port Coral's position."
Glenn Godfrey, SC, Attorney for Stakebank/Port Coral
"There will be real economic loss that our client will suffer if this other port is allowed to go ahead. So what will happen is they will both fail and then you have a real environmental disaster out there. It's not just procedural but also substantial."
Reporter
"What if the principals behind Port of Magical Belize try to make this assertion or this stance that competition is good. what are your thought such as that?"
Glenn Godfrey, SC, Attorney for Stakebank/Port Coral
"Well, competition is good, but you can't go into a situation where you have unregulated competition, if that was the case then you say okay go out there and do whatever you want, don't worry about the environment, don't worry about the success of failure of this project, just go and do it, then let's have a free for all. But since the passage of the environmental protection act and I know a thing or two about it, because I was attorney general at the time that was passed. What we decided was that develop in Belize should be logical."
This evening, we contacted David Gegg, one of the developers behind Portico Enterprise and the Port of Magical Belize. We requested a comment on the outcome of today's hearing, but he told us that since the matter is before the court, he cannot discuss the case. Gegg's company had to join this lawsuit as an interested party. That's because although the outcome of this case directly affects their investment, the principals at Stakebank sued the Government's Attorney General Ministry, the Department of the Environment, and the National Environmental Appraisal Committee.
Justice Shoman has scheduled September 30th as the date of the first hearing. We'll keep following the case closely.
