The Tribune

BY NEIL HARTNELL

TRIBUNE Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A BAHAMIAN bank yesterday hailed a south Florida court’s decision not to strike-out its $35m damages claim against a payments provider for “unlawfully withholding” funds belonging to itself and its clients as its accusations of theft and breach of fiduciary duty were upheld.

Deltec Bank & Trust, responding to Tribune Business inquiries, said it was “encouraged” by Magistrate Judge Ellen D’Angelo’s August 3, 2026, verdict rejecting the bid by Ibanera, a US-headquartered money service business, and its principal, Michael Carbonara, to dismiss a lawsuit alleging they had kept some $20m owned by the Lyford Cay-based institution and its clients for their “own benefit”.

The Bahamian financial services provider, in legal documents, is alleging that this involved Ibanera converting $18m of that sum into crypto currency without permission from itself and its clients and then moving it through various digital assets exchanges to generate a return for itself.

However, Deltec Bank & Trust, which has been ordered to file a third amended complaint against Ibanera and Mr Carbonara, did not have everything its own way. The payments provider and its principal were partially successful in persuading the south Florida court to dismiss Deltec’s claims of “unjust enrichment” against them, as well as allegations that Mr Carbonara personally “aided and abetted” a breach of fiduciary duty.

Still, Deltec told this newspaper: “Deltec is encouraged by the magistrate judge’s thorough decision, which rejects Ibanera’s attempt to dismiss this action and recommends that Deltec’s claims for civil theft, conversion, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract and defamation proceed.

“The court concluded that Deltec plausibly alleged far more than a routine contractual dispute - that Ibanera took funds entrusted to it for safekeeping, converted $18m into crypto currency, transferred the assets to third-party exchanges for its own benefit, concealed what it had done, and refused to return Deltec’s property. Deltec intends to pursue recovery of its funds and hold Ibanera and Michael Carbonara accountable for their conduct.”

Magistrate Judge D’Angelo, in her ruling, found that the payments dispute originated from a July 18, 2024, deal where Deltec and Ibanera agreed that the latter would perform “cross-border transfers and provide multi-currency payments accounts” for the Bahamian bank and its clients. Ibanera and its Singapore-based partner, IPL, established an account at the Development Bank of Singapore to hold the funds belonging to Deltec and its clients.

Ibanera and IPL were thus acting as escrow or fiduciary agents, holding the monies in trust for Deltec and the latter’s customers. “In October 2024, IPL began having issues with the ability to execute payments on behalf of Deltec in Singapore and informed Deltec that it was unable to perform SWIFT transfers,” the US judge recorded.

“On November 11, 2024, Deltec wrote to Ibanera about its funds that were frozen with Ibanera and IPL. IPL attempted to remedy the problem by switching its partner bank in Singapore from DBS to Green Link Digital Bank, but that attempt proved fruitless as IPL’s licence to operate in Singapore had been terminated by” that state’s regulators.

“When Green Link Bank closed IPL’s account, IPL transferred all customer money to the United States account of Ibanera,” the south Florida court’s verdict stated. “IPL no longer held any of Deltec’s funds, and Ibanera ‘agree[ed] to assume all of [IPL]’s liabilities to its customers’.”

“Beginning in January 2025, Deltec made repeated requests to Ibanera to transfer the remaining funds - the equivalent of approximately $21m - to Deltec’s account to another financial institution,” Judge D’Angelo wrote. “On February 3, 2025, after not receiving a response from Ibanera, Deltec’s in-house legal counsel sent a demand letter to Carbonara regarding the failure to receive the payment transfer.

“On February 11, 2025, Ibanera’s counsel responded to Deltec’s demand letter and stated that Deltec had failed to comply with its obligations under the payment services agreement, which caused Ibanera to suffer significant losses. According to Deltec, this was the first time Ibanera complained about Deltec’s alleged breaches of the payment services agreement that resulted in purported losses.

“On February 21, 2025, Deltec’s outside counsel responded to Ibanera and again demanded the immediate release and transfer of all of Deltec’s funds in Ibanera’s possession. In response, on February 26, 2025, Ibanera’s counsel promised that Deltec’s funds were in ‘safeguarded accounts and no one [was] misusing or misapplying such funds’,” the judge added.

“Ibanera added that it was currently the subject of an audit by DBS and the [Singapore regulator] and also undertaking an internal audit and investigation. On April 7, 2025, counsel for Ibanera and Carbonara represented that Ibanera was entitled to keep the funds at issue to offset its losses caused by Deltec’s supposed unauthorised activities.”

Judge D’Angelo noted that it was one month later, allegedly on May 5, 2025, when “Ibanera used $18m in Deltec’s funds to purchase crypto currency, specifically USD Coin. The next day, Ibanera transferred a portion of the funds that had been converted to USD Coin into an Ibanera account on the FalconX exchange, a digital asset brokerage and trading platform.

“According to Deltec, on May 14, 225, Ibanera’s online ledger falsely represented that Deltec’s funds were being held by Ibanera in various fiat currencies. On August 23, 2026, Ibanera transferred Deltec’s funds - now converted to USD Coin - on to Binance, another digital asset brokerage and trading platform,” the judge recorded.

Rejecting multiple attempts by Ibanera and Mr Carbonara to have Deltec’s case dismissed against them in its entirety, Judge D’Angelo wrote: “Deltec has alleged sufficient facts to state a claim for breach of fiduciary duties.” As for the claim of civil theft and conversion, she added: “These allegations go beyond simply breaching the payment service agreement.

“Deltec claims that Ibanera took Deltec’s segregated trust funds without authorisation, converted those funds into crypto currency, transferred them to wallets that Deltec could not access, and then invested the funds for Ibanera’s profit. Deltec further claims that Ibanera concealed the conversion and movement of the funds, and maintained false account and portal representations.

“Deltec alleges that it gave Ibanera a specific set of funds for safekeeping, and Ibanera failed to segregate the money as plaintiff instructed. The allegations show that Ibanera converted the funds into crypto currency and invested it for its own benefit, without Deltec’s permission, and then misrepresented and concealed the whereabouts of the funds and refused to return them when asked to do so,” the judge wrote.

“Once again, drawing all reasonable inferences in Deltec’s favour, it has alleged sufficient facts to state a claim for conversion and civil theft.”