Flag Luxury

I think I have shown conclusively that I am not knowledgeable enough about the real estate business. So says Robert FX Sillerman of himself. Judging from an article in this weekend's Guardian Newspaper, it appears that he is walking away from the real estate business in both the USA and in Anguilla.

Graceland's Heartbreak Hotel swimming pool

According to the author of the Guardian article, journalist James Doran in New York, Sillerman is quoted as saying,

"I think I have shown conclusively that I am not knowledgeable enough about the real estate business," he said. "I think I should leave it to other people to pursue."

His decision comes amid a flurry of lawsuits surrounding the construction of a luxury golf resort on the Caribbean island of Anguilla. The project has failed and is in default on loans and guarantees. "That project has stopped," he said, "I'm not in the real estate business."

The Swiss banking group Credit Suisse last week filed a lawsuit seeking repayment of more than $21m (£12.8m) in guarantees; another company, Anguilla Equity Partners, is seeking more than $25m in relation to the same project.

Sillerman said he has spent so much of his fortune on the Anguilla project that he should not have to pay Credit Suisse. "I was originally asked to invest somewhere around $15m," he said. "But since then I have put in about $200m of my own money just to keep it going."

Court papers filed in Manhattan last week show that he has indeed spent a further $180m on the hotel complex. One schedule of costs shows he has been spending more than $200,000 a month just to water the $12m championship golf course designed by Greg Norman.

Note that he appears to be walking away from the Anguilla project. There is no suggestion that he hopes to rescue it in due course, as some of us have been half hoping. Nor is there is any hint that he expects that anyone else is going to buy it from him.

It will be up to Credit Suisse to try to recover its lost loan investment in whatever way it can. Other investors and creditors and plaintiffs in the law suits will have to see what they can seize and sell.

Simon Cowell

As for Mr Sillerman himself, who said he would not walk away from US$200 million? His media and entertainment empire is not suffering from the recession. A 20 May article in USA Today suggests that American Idol is doing fine. On 13 July in a complex corporate restructuring Simon Cowell and Sillerman announced that their partnership will continue into the future after Cowell’s present contract with American Idol comes to an end in 2010. There is no shortage of money in Mr Sillerman’s coffers. Just don’t ask him to spend any more of it on Anguilla.

Mr and Mrs Robert FX Sillerman

When Credit Suisse and the other creditors come calling, it certainly will not be with any intention of protecting the interests of Anguillians. That had been one of Sillermans motives all along. And, look where it got him!

The abandoned Flag Luxury Resort in Anguilla

Near Disaster

Dolphin Fantaseas. It was in June that I published the story about the illegal dolphin pens that were being constructed at the old long-abandoned Mariners Hotel in Sandy Ground [link here]. Readers will recall the story. The Dolphin Discovery or Dolphin Fantaseas people had been given notice by Viceroy to vacate the property which had been bought at Barnes Bay. Dolphin Fantaseas sold, but without making full arrangements to relocate.

They made an arrangement with the owners of the Mariners Hotel site to construct a new pen and display facility at Sandy Ground.

When the locals began to complain that they wanted to know the environmental impact such a facility would have on their health, the Chief Minister stopped the construction in mid-stride.

The pilings that had begun to be hammered into the sea bed were pulled out of the sand and piled on the beach.

They stayed there all during the hurricane season, a disaster waiting to happen. Now November is here. What we in Anguilla call the Ground Sea Season. Huge swells rise up in the ocean and fling ten-foot high waves onto the beaches. [For the peace of mind of anyone not in the know, if the waves make the beach impossible on the north coast, the south coast is usually placid as a lake, and vice versa]. Yesterday the inevitable happened.

About ten of the pilings were washed out into the bay.

This “bay” is the busiest port in Anguilla. There are over fifty yachts anchored in it at any time. Only one hundred feet away from the pilings is the main jetty. This is where the cargo ships that bring all our foods and construction materials dock. A ten-foot piling driven by a wave into the side of any one of these vessels might be expected to do some damage. We have all been holding our breaths to see whether the poles can be extracted from the water without anyone or any ship being damaged. Our Disaster Preparedness personnel secured most of them by last night. This morning they are scheduled to remove the last of them from the water. I can hear the surge from the north coat even from where I live. Let us hope that no one is killed or injured in the exercise!

Even if the poles are safely lassoed and removed from the bay, questions remain.

Was there no agency with the authority to order their removal before the hurricane season or the subsequent ground sea season began?

Did we have to wait until they were washed out to sea?

Would it not have been less costly to have moved them to a place of safety further onto the abandoned Mariners property?

If you or I left debris in our yard and it floated out to sea, would not the police be on our front step with a summons to appear in court?

If a tenant leaves a mess behind, is it not the responsibility of the landlord to clean up?

Who is going to pay the cost of the rescue exercise?

Who is providing this “investor” with the protection to be able to get away for so long with such deplorable conduct?

Disaster Management

Public Convergence. A friend telephoned me yesterday. She was all worked up. She was in a state of agitation. Had I seen the latest edition of the Official Gazette? The one dated 31 October? No, I had not. What was the problem? The House of Assembly had gone and included ‘riots and public convergence” in the definition of “disasters and threats of disasters” in the Disaster Management Act. What does that mean? That the Governor can declare a state of emergency the next time the workers from a hotel or construction project march in demonstration of their disquiet over some aspect of their lives or work. That was her concern.

Well, it did not seem very likely to me. So, I went and got a copy of the Gazette. And, there it is. The Act is the Disaster Management Act, No 11 of 2007. The long title says the Act is meant to "provide for the effective preparedness, management, mitigation of, response to and recovery from emergencies and disasters, natural and man-made, in Anguilla”. I read the whole Act. It is 24 pages long. There are 47 sections and 2 Schedules. Anyone committing an offence under the Act faces a fine of $5,000.00 or two years imprisonment. Needless to say, the Act mainly deals with hurricanes and the like.

We already have an Emergency Powers Act. This empowers the Governor to declare a “state of emergency”. During the period of any state of emergency our fundamental rights and freedoms, including the right to assemble and to march, can be abrogated for the period of the state of emergency. The state of emergency lapses after a maximum of 90 days. Every democratic country has similar legislation. A “state of emergency” is a condition well known and recognised in law. There is an extensive body of public law dealing with the proper way for such situations to be dealt with. It has in the past been used both in times of natural disaster and in times of civil unrest to give the police and other government agencies extended power to deal with the emergency. For example, the St Kitts government declared a state of emergency when Anguilla seceded from the Associated State in 1967.

What is offensive to anyone concerned with basic human rights is that this new Act permits the government (section 26(1)(b)) to simply broadcast on the radio an announcement that there is a threat of civil disorder (Schedule 2). Anyone not obeying government orders will immediately be in breach of the Act and risk incurring the penalty. Perhaps the most offensive aspect of the statute is that there are few or no definitions. Public convergence is not defined. There are no limits. The Act can be used to ban marching or demonstrating for an unlimited period of time, in the discretion of the government of the day. There are no restrictions. By necessary implication, the government is permitted to do anything it wants to any of us for any period of time it chooses under this Act. The Emergency Powers Act has been drastically amended.

This Act seems to me to conflict with our constitutionally guaranteed rights of freedom of assembly and of movement. It drastically increases the powers of the government to curtail freedom of expression. It goes beyond the limits normally seen in state of emergency legislation. I am not at all sure that a court of law would uphold this Act if it were to be used the next time the Indians decide to march. Or, the next time Anguillians decide to march. But, I submit, that was clearly the intention of the person who gave instructions for this Act to be drafted.