The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The ownership of two disputed Exuma cays, valued at a collective $29m, must be settled “once and for all”, a Bahamian attorney is urging.

Craig Butler, legal counsel to Samuel Burrows, who has launched a fresh bid to obtain a certificate of title to both Lumber Cay and Jim Cay via the Quieting Titles Act, and his attorney Andrew Allen, said both his clients were justified in their actions because the Chief Justice’s previous ruling never settled the ownership issue.

Rejecting assertions by a rival claimant that the latest Quieting Titles action amounts to a “mockery of justice”, he added that his clients will “seek to expedite” the Supreme Court’s investigation of who the cays’ true owner is so the “matter can be laid to rest”.

Mr Butler, referring to Sir Ian Winder’s earlier verdict, told Tribune Business: “During the hearing by the Chief Justice, there were five points of declaratory relief sought on behalf of the Nixon family and the Chief Justice only decided on three.

“On that basis, the title is still open, and needs to be decided via a proper investigation by the courts. We’re going to seek to expedite this and bring it on as soon as possible so, for once and for all, the question can be determined and the matter laid to rest.”

Ambrose Nixon, one of the executors for the late King Richard Nixon’s estate, the rival claimant that won the legal battle before Sir Ian, previously told this newspaper that the latest quieting action was “a waste of the court’s time” given the previous reversal that Mr Allen and Mr Burrows suffered. However, Mr Butler refuted this on the basis that Sir Ian never decided who the true owners are, leaving the issue to be determined by a fresh hearing.

He also took issue with a previous report that detailed how Darren Higgs, a witness for Mr Burrows at the trial before Sir Ian, “testified in the trial that he had been promised a boat and a house ‘if he testified that Samuel lived on Lumber Cay for the last 20 years’.”

Mr Butler said this evidence was never mentioned at the trial but, rather, was contained in an affidavit that Mr Higgs swore on April 24, 2018. Mr Higgs instead sought “to recant the affidavit” during the trial, leading to Sir Ian branding him as “wholly unreliable”. 

Sir Ian, in his verdict, found that Mr Burrows “misled the court” by failing to disclose that he was placed on Lumber Cay by Wayde Nixon, a member of the Nixon family, to be a caretaker. However, Mr Allen said in a subsequent interview: “We’re going to present the true story. We have the opportunity to present the actual story.

“This is Samuel’s possession, and if something was taken fraudulently from King Nixon, then prove it. Prove he owned it and it was taken from him. We’re saying King Nixon’s estate never owned the property.” Mr Burrows is the late King Nixon’s brother-in-law and uncle to all his children, many of whom successfully opposed him in the original Quieting Titles action.

Mr Allen, though, also pointed out that Sir Ian’s ruling did not give or confirm that King Nixon’s estate has title to, and is the true owner, of both cays. He added: “What it does reflect is that the Chief Justice did not give the cays to them. He restored the status quo and left the cays in exactly the same condition as before, which made us feel we were entitled to quiet them again.”

Both Mr Allen, son of late finance minister, Sir William Allen, and Mr Burrows, were among those who featured in Sir Ian Winder’s September 12, 2022, verdict where he set aside a previous Certificate of Title to both islands on the basis that it had been obtained via fraud and abuse of the Quieting Titles Act.

The certificate had been obtained by the same Mr Burrows in partnership with Gardie Nixon, with both men represented by Mr Allen. But, slamming the “falsehoods” and “deliberate concealment” employed by the duo to obtain title to the islands, which was granted by the Supreme Court via a different case on July 18, 2017, the Chief Justice said the fraud meant the later sale of both islands to companies owned by a Virginia-based developer, David Tilton, was “null and void”.

His verdict detailed allegations that the two islands were sold to Mr Tilton for a combined $1.8m - a sum equivalent to just 6.2 percent of their combined appraised value. Lumber Cay, in particular, was said to have been appraised at $20m alone, and offers a prime real estate/tourism development opportunity as a 30-acre parcel located just 700 feet south of Staniel Cay, the renowned boating and second home destination.

Mr Allen was also described in the judgment as acting for Mr Tilton and his companies. He was said to have been a president, director and shareholder of Archipelago Development & Resorts III and Jim Cay Company, with Mr Tilton funding the quieting action, but Mr Allen subsequently vehemently denied that there was any land fraud or that he played a role in any such conspiracy, adding that the Chief Justice’s verdict got it “very, very wrong”.

Jim Cay is an eight-acre island situated north of Lansing Cay, between Musher and Hog Cay, but Mr Allen said previously the new action is “based on a completely new set of circumstances” to what was before Sir Ian.

Asserting that there are no plans to ‘flip’, or sell, either cay to Mr Tilton or anyone else should his client be successful, he added that Mr Burrows’ claim is based on a possessory title - meaning that he actually lived on, or worked on, both cays for an extended period of time - “without those documents tying us to” the estate of the late King Richard Nixon.

Mr Allen, in a letter to this newspaper, added: “Matters brought before the court under the Quieting Titles Act are one of three instances where the court acts in an investigative (rather than merely adjudicative) capacity. It is fully capable of discharging this duty in a just and equitable manner without the sideshow of litigants sparring via the media.”