Iberostar, sued under the US Helms-Burton Act, alleges lack of jurisdiction

The Iberostar hotel group, one of the Spanish companies sued in the United States under the Helms-Burton law, requested that this legal action be dismissed with the central argument that the court does not have jurisdiction over a company based in Spain and without business or physical presence in the state of Florida.

In a judicial document to which EFE had access this Thursday and which includes an affidavit by Alberto Llompart, general counsel of Iberostar Hoteles y Apartamentos, SL, the company’s lawyers develop that argument and others in order to invalidate the lawsuit filed in 2020 by María Dolores Cantó Martí in the federal courts in Miami.

The plaintiff claims to have legal rights to a property in Cuba where her family had a hotel and which was confiscated after the triumph of the revolution in 1959 and alleges that iberostar profited by operating that establishment, for which, by virtue of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, she claims to be financially compensated.

Title III, which after 23 years in judicial limbo entered into force on May 2, 2019 by decision of then-President Donald Trump, allows companies to sue in the United States that profit from properties seized in Cuba before 1996, the year in which the Helms-Burton Act came into effect.

In more than 3 years, 44 lawsuits have been filed and only one has been definitively resolved and not in court.

Iberostar’s reasons

Iberostar, based on the island of Mallorca, not only questions the jurisdiction of the Miami court in this case, but also denies having operated the Hotel Imperial and points out that the rights of the plaintiff, María Dolores Cantó Martí, over the seized property do not they are proven.

“Iberostar Spain does not own, nor has it ever owned, the Hotel Imperial”, emphasizes Llompart, who also denies that his company has managed or operated it in partnership with the Cuban government.

According to Llompart, when this lawsuit was filed, the Imperial hotel did not display the Iberostar brand banner. “He only had it between 2017 and 2019″, he underlines.

After 23 years in which successive presidents of the United States kept Title III of the law promulgated by Bill Clinton on hold to avoid having problems with third countries, Trump decided to put it into force to pressure the Cuban government to make changes on the island. .

According to the United States-Cuba Economic and Commercial Council, a private and non-profit entity that has taken care of gathering all the information on the lawsuits invoking Title III, the 44 filed to date involve companies from 15 countries.

These are the United States, Cuba, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Panama, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand and the United Kingdom.

A single compensation and millions for lawyers

Of those demands, 15 are “certified”, which means that they were US citizens who lost their properties in Cuba, and 29 not certified, who were Cuban citizens or those of other countries.

The Council, led by John Kavulich, drew up a list of 87 entities that have actually been sued or notified that they may be sued, which is a prior step provided for in the title.

Amazon, Visa, Booking, Expedia, Mastercard and Trivago are on the list, along with BNP Paribas, BBVA, Meliá, Iberostar, Barceló, NH Hotels, Pernod Ricard, Iberia, Air Europa, Latam, Societe Generale.

Some of the companies have had various lawsuits. The record is held by the travel platform, Expedia, which is included in eight cases.

According to the council, the only claimants who have received compensation so far are the Clafins, a family that in 1960 the Cuban regime seized from what was then called the “Soledad Sugar Company.”

In 2020, the Clafins filed a lawsuit against the Swiss multinational LafargeHolcim in a South Florida court for doing business with assets that were expropriated from them in Cuba and the following year both parties reached a compensation agreement for an undisclosed amount, which closed definitely the case.

The Justice has only issued a verdict so far, which requires each of the four cruise companies sued, Norwegian, Carnival, Royal Caribbean and MSC to pay some US$ 100 million, but they can still appeal it.

Currently, ten lawsuits are being heard in the courts of appeal and those same judicial bodies have already dismissed six.

According to the United States-Cuba Commercial and Economic Council, the United States authorities have certified 5,913 cases of citizens and companies of the country that can benefit from Title III, for a total of US$ 1.900 million, which with interest for more than 60 years would amount to 8.521 million.

To this enormous sum, an amount not evaluated by the claims will have to be added “not certified”.

Source: EFE