The Tribune

BY NEIL HARTNELL

TRIBUNE Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

THE FURIOUS battle for control at Old Bahama Bay has switched to the Supreme Court amid competing claims of $2.2m in unpaid bills, a phony lease and a “take over by force” that purportedly “barricaded” the resort.

Island Ventures & Resort Club (IVRC), the entity formed by the resort’s condo owners to manage the west Grand Bahama hotel following Ginn’s demise 15 years ago, has launched legal action to overturn its early August ousting with its general manager asserting he had “never witnessed anything like” the hotly-contested ousting in his 29 years at the property.

IVRC, which has been joined by its affiliates and three Old Bahama Bay condominium associations, is urging the Supreme Court to grant “phased relief” via a series of injunctions that would prevent the resort’s owners from “obstructing, barricading, gating, locking, fencing in” or using any other mechanism to block access to the property and its amenities for the 73 condo owners.

They are also demanding that the Supreme Court prevent interference with the “management, operation and maintenance” of Old Bahama Bay, and Order that IVRC’s control be reinstated through provision of “the locks, keys, access controls and utilities”.

Finally, legal documents obtained by Tribune Business show IVRC and its affiliates are seeking a full Supreme Court trial over their claims against the resort’s owners for trespass, trademark breaches and alleged “unjust enrichment”. They assert that, based on Old Bahama Bay’s August 2025 performance, their ousting will have caused the loss of $580,000 in room revenue by the 2026 month-end.

However, LRA-OBB and Resorts Holdings, the two corporate entities that own Old Bahama Bay, together with their managing agent, Reunion Cay Island Resort, vehemently rejected and opposed IVRC’s allegations and injunction bid during Supreme Court hearings before Justice Constance Delancy. She has reserved her decision.

Daniel Baker, a Reunion Cay representative, in an August 28, 2026, affidavit reiterated the ownership’s argument that, following the termination of both sides’ lease agreement for Old Bahama Bay in January 2019, it was replaced with a Bare Licence deal that gave IVRC no leasehold or any other kind of ownership interest in the West End resort’s real estate.

Asserting that IVRC was told on February 11, 2025, that the Bare Licence would terminate on March 28 last year, he argued that the management company’s refusal to vacate and surrender Old Bahama Bay to its owners forced LRA-OBB and Resorts Holdings to ultimately seize control of the West End resort on August 4, 2026.

Mr Baker and Reunion who, together with LRA-OBB and Resorts Holdings, are contesting the Department of Inland Revenue and Treasurer’s bid to seize and sell-off a separate 1,400-acre West End land parcel over near-$10m in allegedly unpaid real property taxes, are also claiming that IVRC itself has failed to pay a combined $2.2m in outstanding taxes, utility and security bills, plus payables owed by the three condominium associations.

IVRC, meanwhile, is asserting that LRA-OBB and Resorts Holdings lack the necessary approvals to operate a resort as those for Old Bahama Bay were instead issued to itself by the Department of Inland Revenue on August 5, 2026 - just one day after its eviction/ousting.

However, Mr Baker is countering that these “regulatory permissions” do not give IVRC any ownership interest in Old Bahama Bay’s real estate. And he alleged that these permits, including a Business Licence and Hotel Licence, were purportedly obtained by the management company using a lease “granted” by Ricardo Pratt - who has been branded a “vexatious litigant” by the Supreme Court after all his multiple rival claims to own the former Ginn project’s real estate were dismissed.

IVRC and its affiliates, who are being represented by attorney Mark Flowers, alleged in their August 26, 2026, claim that LRA-OBB (which stands for Lubert-Adler-Old Bahama Bay) had “without notice, without process and without any Order of the court barricaded the resort, changed the locks upon the condominium units” and “excluded” itself, unit owners and their guests, and marina slip owners with effect from August 4. Lubert Adler is the investment bank that financed Ginn.

It also alleged that LRA-OBB, Resorts Holdings and their agents, including Candid Security and its principal, Cleveland Duncombe, “locked out the employees, took the bookings and revenues of the resort, and held the resort out to the public as [their] own under new management”.

John MacDonald, IVRC’s president, in a messaged reply to Tribune Business inquiries yesterday confirmed that the legal battle has been initiated and is ongoing. “Yes, we filed on them and are awaiting a ruling,” he said. “Hopefully, a ruling will be handed down next week.”

And, in an earlier September 1, 2026, affidavit, he alleged that LRA-OBB and Resorts Holdings have seized control of a resort they have no permits or approvals to operate while ousting the only entity - IVRC - that does.

“The carrying on of a hotel at Old Bahama Bay requires a licence. By a Business Licence certificate granted under section 12 of the Business Licence Act 2023 upon August 5, 2026, the Department of Inland Revenue of the Ministry of Finance granted to Island Ventures Resort Club, trading as Old Bahama Bay/Hotel Operation, an annual Hotel Licence expiring upon December 31, 2026,” Mr McDonald alleged.

“That licence is current. IVRC holds in addition current licences in respect of the marina, the sale of gasoline and retail trading… Those licences are granted to IVRC personally and are not transferable. LRA-OBB holds none of them. The position since August 4, 2026, is therefore that the defendant is in occupation of a resort which it is not licensed to operate, and has shut out of it the only party which is.

“That is not merely a matter of private right as between the defendant and IVRC. It goes to the balance of convenience upon this application, because the relief sought would restore a state of affairs which is lawful, whereas the refusal of it leaves in place an occupation under which the business of the resort cannot lawfully be carried on at all.” Old Bahama Bay, though, is now being operated by a management company headed by veteran tourism executive and realtor, Don Churchill.

And Mr Baker, in his August 28, 2026, affidavit, countered: “The Business Licences on which [IVRC] rely are regulatory permissions to conduct specified businesses. They are not conveyances, leases, declarations of title or judicial determinations of a right to occupy LRA-OBB's land. The fact that certificates were issued on August 5, 2026, after IVRC had already been excluded, does not confer possession or determine this dispute.”

He also alleged that IVRC’s reliance on the four licences “is materially incomplete” because it had failed to disclose to the Supreme Court, based on documents obtained by LRA-OBB’s attorneys, Scott & Company, that these permits were obtained “upon the strength of a purported lease or other authority granted by Ricardo Pratt”.

Mr Baker asserted: “Mr Pratt had no title to, or lawful right of possession over, the resort property, and no authority from LRA-OBB to grant IVRC a lease or licence. His claim to possession and fee simple entitlement had been dismissed by the Supreme Court, and he had been declared a vexatious litigant….

“Further, [the] Bare Licence expressly prohibited IVRC from knowingly permitting Mr Pratt, or any of his employees, agents, contractors or representatives, to enter or come upon the [Old Bahama Bay] property. IVRC was therefore aware that Mr Pratt had no recognised authority from LRA-OBB in relation to the property, and that reliance upon him was contrary to IVRC's own covenant…..

“I do not know, and do not assert, whether the [lease] instrument itself was fabricated. I say only that, whatever its provenance, it was incapable of conferring any right upon IVRC. Any Business Licence application that presented the instrument as a valid basis for IVRC's occupation would likewise have been misleading,” Mr Baker added.

“The licences were issued on August 5, 2026, after LRA-OBB had taken control, and long after the Bare Licence had expired and been terminated. A regulatory certificate obtained upon the strength of an instrument that conferred no right of occupation cannot establish lawful possession, cure the absence of the land owner's consent, or confer a proprietary interest. It is not government confirmation of IVRC's title or right to manage the resort, as MacDonald repeatedly suggests.”

Mr Baker, in a subsequent September 3, 2026, affidavit, said LRA-OBB and Resorts Holdings were partially motivated to regain control and oust IVRC because the latter allegedly owed “substantial sums” it was obligated to pay under its Bare Licence but had failed to do so.

“In deciding to enforce its control over access to its property, LRA-OBB also took account of substantial sums then outstanding in connection with the property and its operation,” he alleged. Mr Baker said these were calculated, as at August 4, 2026, as amounting to outstanding licence fees and interest owed by IVRC to LRA-OBB of $98,44. Other fees and interest for the continued use and occupation of the property after the Bare Licence ended were pegged at $283,265.

Mr Baker alleged that real property tax arrears and interest stood at $599,483, along with unpaid dockage fees and interest of $189,981, and a $120,493 outstanding VAT bill. He claimed that “IVRC’s share of security costs and interest” stood at $140,744, and - combined with the unpaid taxes and sums owed to LRA-OBB - these stood at $1.432m.

Unpaid utility and telecommunications charges for Old Bahama Bay included $367,541 due to Grand Bahama Resort Utility Services for water and electricity, a further $101,730.93 owed to the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) and B$33,373 due to Cable Bahamas, totalling $502,645, Mr Baker alleged.

And he further claimed there are “outstanding payables of the three condominium associations then administered by IVRC, being a security cost share of $137,121 due to OBB Hospitality and water, wastewater and electricity charges of $142,567.54 due to Grand Bahama Resort Utility Services, totaling $279,688. “The aggregate of those sums is $2.215m,” Mr Baker asserted.

However, James Culmer, Old Bahama Bay’s general manager under IVRC and a 29-year veteran at the West End property, said of the management firm’s ousting in an August 14, 2026, affidavit: “In my 29 years at the resort I have never witnessed anything like the events of the past week.

“On and since August 4, 2026, the resort has been barricaded and taken over by force by persons acting for or in concert with the defendant, LRA-OBB. The dispute is deeply concerning to me as the manager responsible for the property, the staff and the guests.”

Turning specifically to the alleged impact on Old Bahama Bay staff, Mr Culmer said: “The LRA-OBB parties have effectively locked out most of the workforce of the resort. Approximately 50 of the 100 employees under my management have been barred from their place of work since August 4, 2026.

“Those employees are employed in the operation of a business which is carried on validly and under licence: IVRC holds the four subsisting 2026 Business Licence Certificates for the hotel, marina, gasoline and retail businesses of the resort, and to the best of my knowledge, information and belief, no other person or entity holds any licence to operate any business at the resort…..

“I must also speak to what this has done to the employees themselves. Morale among the staff has collapsed. These are men and women I have worked beside for years - some for decades - housekeepers, maintenance men, dock hands, front-desk staff, cooks, gardeners and security officers, most of them from West End and the surrounding settlements, where the resort is among the largest employers and where in many households more than one family member depends on a resort pay packet….

“They have been given no notice, no explanation and no assurance by the persons who barred them from their workplace,” Mr Culmer added. “The uncertainty is itself doing damage that cannot be undone by money. Trained and experienced staff are the resort’s most valuable asset after the property itself.

“A workforce of this quality, in a settlement of this size, has taken years to build and cannot simply be re-hired if it scatters. Some employees are already speaking of leaving Grand Bahama to seek work elsewhere; others cannot afford even a fortnight without wages. Every day the lock-out continues, the likelihood grows that when the resort reopens it will do so without the people who know how to run it, and the guests, bookings and reputation that depend on them will go with them.

“As the person responsible for these employees, I say plainly that the harm now being done to the workforce, to their families and to the community of West End is immediate, compounding and irreparable.”

Mr Baker, though, blasted Mr Culmer’s affidavit as “substantially hearsay and inference” as he rejected the impression it gave of IVRC’s ousting being “a violent and unlawful seizure”.

He added: “The transition was carried out without violence, with security arrangements intended to preserve safety and order. Barriers and controlled access were necessary because IVRC had refused to surrender possession following termination and a confrontation had developed…..

“Persons employed by IVRC ceased to have authority to enter and operate upon LRA-OBB's property once IVRC's authority had ended. They were not employed by LRA-OBB, and LRA-OBB did not dismiss them. Culmer's opinions concerning morale, the future dispersal of staff and irreparable damage are speculative.”