The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

ATTORNEY Fred Smith, QC yesterday accused the previous administration of having a "pre-determined" motive to grant Canadian fashion mogul whatever applications he was seeking to allow him to reconstruct his Lyford Cay home before public consultation on the issue.

Standing before Supreme Court Justice Rhonda Bain, Mr Smith laid bare a number of documents which he claimed demonstrated the last Progressive Liberal Party government's attempt to "rush through" and "obfuscate" Mr Nygard's applications concerning a $50m investment he planned to make in Nygard Cay.

According to Mr Smith, Save The Bays, formerly the Coalition to Save Clifton Bay, submitted multiple letters to numerous government ministers and/or officials between March and May of 2013, including former Prime Minister Perry Christie, seeking certain information concerning the construction/development activities at Nygard Cay.

However, Mr Smith said the only response the Coalition received from any of the government entities came in the form of two separate letters from the Ministry of Transport and Aviation and the Ministry of Works in April of that year.

And those letters, in response to the Coalition, only acknowledge that those ministries were in receipt of the Coalition's letters, and in the case of the letter from the Ministry of Works, only stated that "all representations made will be taken into account in the decision making process".

As a result of the Coalition not receiving a satisfactory response from the various government entities, the Coalition applied for the first of several Judicial Reviews against the construction/development activities at Nygard Cay.

Notwithstanding that, Mr Smith said a year later, the government still went ahead and issued a public notice on June 18, 2014, concerning Mr Nygard's reconstruction plans, with a 21-day consultation period.

That then led to the Coalition applying for a second Judicial Review concerning the construction at Nygard Cay, but that Judicial Review was aimed at the consultation process itself.

Yesterday, Mr Smith contended that for the government to have embarked on a consultation process concerning Nygard Cay, which was already the subject of controversy both legally and at the regulatory level, and to have done so in a very "conflated" and "amorphous" manner, suggested it was nothing more than a "sham".

Mr Smith's submissions came during court proceedings stemming from Mr Nygard's ongoing battle with Save The Bays over allegations the construction/development activities at his Lyford Cay home have led to a substantial growth of the property.

The group claims Mr 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.