The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

One of the four parties embroiled in the Baha Mar dispute has accepted the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation’s (BCCEC) arbitration/mediation offer, provided the other three agree to the same.

Edison Sumner, the Chamber’s chief executive, while declining to name the ‘accepting’ side, said yesterday: ‘At least one of the parties has responded to us, and indicated their willingness to go to arbitration provided we can get the other parties to agree to the same.”

Mr Sumner added that he had spoken to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and its Court of Arbitration within the past two days, with the latter’s general-secretary informing him of its “willingness to mediate between all parties concerned when called upon to do so”.

The BCCEC called on all sides to the $3.5 billion dispute - Baha Mar (the Izmirlian family); China Export-Import Bank as debt financier; China Construction America as contractor; and the Government - to take their issues to arbitration/mediation last week.

Suggesting that this would be a quicker route than the Government’s winding-up petition to securing Baha Mar’s completion and opening, Mr Sumner said it would also bring in experienced professional arbitrators - with knowledge of construction and other issues central to the dispute - to help mediate a resolution.

The BCCEC chief executive added that arbitration would also be less costly and time consuming than using the courts to solve Baha Mar’s problems, and - possibly even more important given the current verbal battles - it would take the dispute out of “the public domain”.

Given that Damien Gomez, minister of state for legal affairs, rejected the Chamber’s arbitration suggestion on Friday, and that the BCCEC had only written to the Prime Minister and Baha Mar, it appears likely that it is the developer who has accepted the arbitration offer.

Mr Sumner told Tribune Business that Monday’s comments by Fred Mitchell, minister of foreign affairs, about Baha Mar principal, Sarkis Izmirlian, again highlighted why comments by all sides in the dispute needed to be “tempered” and “the temperature lowered”.

He added that the present public dialogue, especially between Baha Mar and the Christie administration, was not occurring “at a healthy pace”.