The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A Supreme Court judge has ordered the appointment of an “independent administrator” over the booking platform of a Briland tourism operator at the centre of a furious legal battle involving claims of ‘fronting’ and $1m in unpaid Bahamian taxes.

Justice Simone Fitzcharles, in an August 7, 2026, verdict acknowledged that the appointment was an attempt to balance the warring Conch & Coconut parties’ competing interests as the Bahamian half of the business demands access to booking and customer information while his estranged US former business partner argues all such data is “proprietary” and is owned by himself.

And, with an Order that seeks to walk a fine line, she also had to account for the south Florida courtroom battle where Pablo Conde obtained an interim Order preventing his former Bahamian business partner, Julian ‘Shaq’ Gibson, from “soliciting bookings” from customers the US operation had previously acquired.

The independent administrator’s appointment came following a June 1, 2026, hearing where both sides presented their respective cases for upholding, or discharging and varying, the November 13, 2025, Order that Mr Gibson obtained to block Mr Conde from launching a winding-up petition to put the Harbour Island-based tour operator, vacation rental and destination management business into “liquidation”.

That same Order, obtained by Mr Gibson and his Callenders & Company attorneys at a hearing where only they were present, also barred Mr Conde and his half of the operation from making public assertions that the Bahamian business was insolvent, closed or not operating. Not surprisingly, Mr Conde moved to overturn these impositions but, based on Justice Fitzcharles’ written verdict, was only partially successful.

For while he and Conch & Coconut LLC, the US-based arm of the business, “retain control” of the booking platform, websites and customer payments, he must now give the independent administrator “read only” access to this data. The Supreme Court has given both sides 21 days, until August 28, 2026, to agree the identity of this person, failing which they will have to submit their respective choices and let Justice Fitzcharles decide.

And all “net receipts from bookings for Bahamian local services”, meaning amenities and tours visitors undertake on Harbour Island, must be deposited into an escrow account controlled by the independent administrator rather than either Mr Gibson or Mr Conde. Conch & Coconut’s online booking platform has emerged as a major source of friction amid the two sides’ messy break-up, with Mr Gibson alleging it has collected $6.7m in customer revenues since 2017.

Detailing the background to the dispute, Justice Fitzcharles said Mr Conde created Conch & Coconut LLC on August 24, 2017, “to operate a concierge service” for the booking of vacations and related services - such as tours and vehicles - on Eleuthera and Harbour Island. That same year, he approached Mr Gibson with a proposal that they become partners with the latter overseeing operations and services delivered in The Bahamas.

Noting that their Conch & Coconut partnership seemingly launched without a written agreement, Justice Fitzcharles said Mr Conde and his LLC “booked and accepted payments from persons who wished to book services such as Bahamian tours, rental of golf carts, vehicles and boats and real estate vacation rentals, amongst others.

“Several vehicles, boats and/or other chattels were purchased to provide rentals for the Bahamas-based operation. The ownership of these chattels is in dispute amongst the parties,” she added. “In March 2023, the Department of Inland Revenue in The Bahamas (DIR) undertook an investigation of the business… According to [Mr Gibson], the liability for overdue tax payments exceeded $1m. The DIR in raids seized vehicles and alcoholic beverages under the brand of ‘Pink Sand’.”

Conch & Coconut Ltd, Mr Gibson’s company, was then formed in The Bahamas to handle the Briland end of the operation. Mr Gibson alleged Mr Conde’s LLC handled “the US marketing and accepted payments from customers who booked the services, but the provision of those services is reserved for Bahamians only”.

“He states that from 2017 the LLC collected the gross revenue generated by [Mr Gibson] and subsequently the LTD, which the claimant believes to be in excess of $6.7m,” Justice Fitzcharles added. Mr Gibson, though, complained that he never received more than $3,000 per month from Mr Conde and his US company, although the latter covered expenses incurred in The Bahamas, and there was no accounting for how much money his US partner as receiving.

Eventually, in October 2023, Mr Gibson and Mr Conde agreed a ‘Consulting and lease with option to buy’ deal whereby the former agreed to pay his US partner some $725,710 over a ten-year period, involving 120 payments, as part of a buy-out and orderly business break-up. Mr Gibson would lease 24 vehicles from Mr Conde, and was licensed to use the ‘Conch & Coconut’ intellectual property and receive all rights to this once payment was completed and the deal closed.

“Additionally, the LLC [Mr Conde] agreed to pay all taxes owing to the Bahamian government up to the date of the agreement, and thereafter to transfer to the LTD [Mr Gibson ‘all taxes incurred and collected by the LLC on behalf of’ The Bahamas government,” Justice Fitzcharles wrote, noting that the deal’s validity is now being disputed.

Then, in 2025, Mr Gibson and the Bahamian business sought to break completely from Mr Conde by obtaining their own domain name and website, plus seeking to obtain Bahamian trademarks for ‘Conch & Coconut’ and ‘Conch & Coconut Bahamas’ - the very names Mr Conde claims to have registered and owns in the US.

However, Mr Gibson is alleging that “failed to pay the outstanding taxes to the DIR as agreed, that the LLC has failed to give an accounting regarding the gross revenue received by the LLC since 2023, and that there are undocumented debits from the accounts of the LLC showing credit card payments not authorised by the” Bahamian operation.

However, Mr Conde has countered by alleging that Mr Gibson “misappropriated” proprietary data - including 10,000 customer records he claims to own - by downloading booking data from multiple platforms. He also served a demand letter on his Bahamian partner over the alleged failure to honour the buy-out deal, with Mr Gibson returning fire by alleging Mr Conde had failed to pay the $700,000 in tax arrears owed to the DIR as promised.

These developments sparked the legal battles in both The Bahamas and south Florida federal court, with Mr Gibson obtaining the injunction to block any winding-up. And, in a separate Supreme Court hearing, Justice Ellis ruled the Bahamian operation could continue using its vehicles and boats but not sell them or remove them from the jurisdiction.

Justice Fitzcharles, in her August 7 verdict, upheld the bar on Mr Conde advancing any winding-up petition against Mr Gibson’s Briland business plus the prohibition on any “false representation that the LTD is closed or not operating”. However, Mr Gibson’s demand for access to the booking platform and to know how much revenues it receives proved trickier to resolve.

“I am also not ignoring the claimants' argument that the defendants are not Bahamians and are therefore not, by Bahamian economic policy, permitted to engage in conducting business in The Bahamas of the kind offered by the Ltd,” the judge wrote.

“The claimants assert that, without access to booking and payment information, they cannot know the volume of bookings, receipts or funds that should be available for the local business.

“The defendants argue that the platform, customer information and related data are proprietary to the LLC. The defendants further allege that the LTD or its agent downloaded the booking and customer data of the LLC in May 2025.”

Justice Fitzcharles said ownership of the booking platform, and its customer data and revenues, is an issue to be determined at trial, while Mr Gibson and his operation are already barred by the US court from soliciting bookings using Mr Conde’s data.

“In the circumstances, I decline from ordering that the defendants [Mr Conde] give the claimants [Mr Gibson] administrative control of the platforms, the platform credentials, customer lists or booking data,” the judge ruled. “This does not mean that the defendants are entitled to exploit their control of the platform without oversight. It is necessary to preserve the evidence and revenues while respecting the US preliminary injunction.

“I am therefore of the view that this necessitates the appointment of an interim administrator or forensic accountant. Such administrator, and not the claimants, should have read-only access to the relevant booking, merchant, payment-processor and accounting accounts. The administrator should provide both sides with an anonymised reconciliation of bookings for Bahamian local services, gross receipts, deductions, refunds, chargebacks, net receipts, cancellations and referrals.

“The reconciliation must not disclose information which the claimants are presently restrained from using,” Justice Fitzcharles added. “It is necessary for both sides to have continuing access to the electronic information. However, I consider that such access must be confined and disputed data preserved.

“Additionally, since the defendants' platforms may be the only means by which the claimants can currently test whether there is a true gap between gross customer payments and remittances to the Ltd, the appointment of an independent interim administrator or forensic accountant is, in my opinion, appropriate.

“The claimants shall not be fettered in running the local business through customers, information and opportunities they obtain independently of the disputed information and platforms. This would safeguard compliance with the US preliminary injunction. The defendants, for their part, may operate the platform(s) they presently control,” she continued.

“However, they must preserve a complete auditable record of every inquiry, booking, cancellation, refund and referral. Further, the defendants should not make false statements about the independently-sourced business of the Ltd. Additionally, the defendants should not delete, suppress or manipulate platform or payment records.”

Justice Fitzcharles also ordered that “future net booking monies” be held in an escrow account controlled by the independent administrator, who has to report every 60 days with an accounting reconciliation to all parties. Justice Ellis’ ruling on the vehicles and boats was also upheld, with an updated inventory of these assets to be completed within 14 days.