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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2023
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By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A BAHAMIAN insurer will “only start panicking” if The Bahamas remains blacklisted by the European Union (EU) post-February 2024 as he yesterday sought to ease fears about coverage cost and capacity. Anton Saunders, RoyalStar Assurance’s managing director, told Tribune Business that this nation’s failure to escape the EU’s “non-cooperative
jurisdictions for tax purposes” in yesterday’s review will not prove fatal for the Bahamian property and casualty industry’s ability to retain reinsurance cover in the short-term. While he and other insurers had previously voiced alarm if The Bahamas failed to exit the EU blacklist this month, given the potentially negative consequences for German reinsurers that provide more than one-third of this nation’s reinsurance capacity, Mr Saunders yesterday voiced confidence that the Davis administration
had “done everything possible” to secure the country’s escape. Voicing optimism that an exit will be achieved at the next review in early 2024, the RoyalStar chief told this newspaper: “I didn’t think we were going to escape it this October, but I think the Government has done everything possible so we should be off in February. If not, then I will start panicking. “We all knew this was probably not going to happen this year, so reinsurers will put a clause in their treaties which says we’re on it come January
1, 2025, we will not be able to do business with you and will cancel your contracts as of December 31, 2024, and pay you whatever we owe you.” Speaking from Europe, where is doing the rounds of reinsurers ahead of coverage and treaty renewals for 2024, Mr Saunders said of the EU decision on The Bahamas: “This didn’t come as as surprise. We had met with the Prime Minister, we had met with the Attorney General [Ryan Pinder
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Gov’t: EU’s outdated review keeps Bahamas blacklisted
Web shop loses challenge over $1m Gaming Board ‘withdrawal’
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
THE GOVERNMENT yesterday accused the European Union (EU) of relying on outdated information to keep The Bahamas blacklisted, as a Cabinet minister said: “We’re doing everything in our power to get it right”. Ryan Pinder KC, the attorney general, who had previously voiced optimism that The Bahamas would be delisted this month, told Tribune Business the Davis administration was “rather disappointed but not surprised” that this nation has not been permitted to escape what is a 16 nationstrong tax ‘blacklist’. He explained that the EU based its decision on an April 2023 report by
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RYAN PINDER KC
EU to brand The Bahamas a “non-cooperative jurisdiction” for tax purposes in October 2022. However, the EU takes its cue on this issue from the OECD’s Forum for Harmful Tax Practices, given that both bodies’ tax and “economic substance” initiatives overlap to some extent. Given the nature of this relationship, Mr Pinder questioned the “logic” of the EU making its decision, and relying on an outdated assessment, before the
Forum on Harmful Tax Practices’ next meeting which is scheduled for later this month. He added that he was “cautiously optimistic” that The Bahamas’ reforms, and progress in implementing them, will receive a “favourable review” from the OECD body which - had it come out earlier - could have influenced the EU to take a different approach to this country with its own blacklist. As a result, he described The Bahamas’ continued blacklisting as “a timing issue”, and hinted at optimism this nation will no
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Opposition chief slams Gov’t over EU blacklist By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Opposition’s leader yesterday slammed the Government’s failure to secure The Bahamas’ escape from the European Union’s (EU) tax blacklist almost two years MICHAEL PINTARD after it pledged to resolve all concerns. Michael Pintard, while committing the Free National Movement (FNM) to “stand with” the Davis administration against “the arbitrary rules” and double standards imposed on nations such as The Bahamas, accused the Government of failing to live up to promises of securing this nation’s exit from the 27-nation bloc’s listing. In particular, he referred to the three letters signed by Prime Minister Philip Davis KC over a six-week period between December 15, 2021, and January 26, 2022, pledging that The Bahamas will resolve the EU’s issues over purported deficiencies in its “economic substance” and tax reporting. “After committing in writing to the EU from as far back as December 2021, and after earnest promises and blame shifting in October 2022, the Prime Minister and his boastful Attorney General [Ryan Pinder KC] still have not been able to get The Bahamas off the EU’s tax blacklist, referred to formally as the EU ‘list of noncooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes’,” Mr Pintard asserted. “Two years after the Prime Minister and the Attorney General promised to take the necessary corrective action, the EU
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WENDY’S rendering on Paradise Island.
Wendy’s chief on PI: ‘What’s all the fuss?’ By FAY SIMMONS Tribune Business Reporter jsimmons@tribunemedia.net THE Wendy’s and Marco’s Pizza franchise principals “don’t understand what all this fuss is about” as they sought to argue why their Paradise Island restaurant project should receive planning permission. Chris Tsavoussis, who along with his brother, Terry, heads Aetos Holdings, questioned at Monday night’s Town Planning Committee public consultation why there was so much opposition to the proposal to convert the former Scotiabank branch when the adjacent shopping plaza hosts a Dunkin Donuts franchise, web shops and a liquor store. He said: “We found an old dilapidated building on Paradise Island that we’d like very much to renovate and enhance. Wendy’s is a brand and Marco’s
Pizza. They are some of the world’s best brands, and the fact that there’s Dunkin’ Donuts next door, there’s a barbecue place a few doors beyond that, there’s a web shop in the same shopping centre, there’s liquor stores... “We see how that facility treats its garbage and what the view looks like to the public, and we know the way we operate, especially because it’s Paradise Island, a lot of extra care and attention would be given to that. “So we don’t understand what all this fuss is about when the precedents have been set with a commercial shopping centre that exists and it’s there. Actually, we plan to raise the bar on what’s next to us by a significant amount. So I always tell the residents that their fears are unfounded. We just don’t quite get what this about.
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A BAHAMIAN web shop operator’s challenge to the Gaming Board taking $1m from its accounts to finance development of an industry-wide compliance and monitoring system has been rejected by a judge. Justice Andrew Forbes, in an October 13, 2023, decision refused to grant Chances Games and its parent, Jarol Investments, permission to initiate a Judicial Review action against the industry regulator because the proceedings were “woefully out of time” when launched. And he also found that the gaming operator had not exhausted all other legal options. Hinting that Chances still has “a remedy” if it remains dissatisfied with the Gaming Board’s actions and decision, the Freeport-based judge noted that the dispute’s origins dated to the time when the COVID-19 pandemic hit The Bahamas in February/March 2020. As part of Chances’ licence, under the Gaming House Act and Gaming House Regulations 2014, it was required to invest “in a computer system properly configured” so that the Gaming Board’s central electronic monitoring system could have unrestricted access to its data,
“including but not limited to a system with the ability for continuous online realtime recording, monitoring and control of significant gaming transactions”. Chances, though, alleged that the Gaming Board has “failed to set up and maintain” such a central electronic monitoring system as required by the regulations. “Further, it is alleged that the Board withdrew monies from [Chances] investigative deposit accounts to pay Infrasoft Technologies for the development and implementation of” this system “without any consultation with management before,” Justice Forbes wrote. A total $947,919 was allegedly withdrawn by the Gaming Board to finance its monitoring system. This was broken down into $780,452 for Infrasoft, $145,785 in “agent fees”, and $21,692 to another technology provider, MicroNet, all of which was to finance the contract between Infrasoft and the gaming regulator. “The intended claimant [Chances] also alleges that the Board has failed to perform its duty, whether expressly or by implication, or is guilty of withdrawing funds from the accounts to pay Infrasoft for works not related to the recovery
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