Four cruise lines to pay nearly $450 million for using Cuba port

[El Presidente]

What a crock of crap 

Four cruise lines to pay nearly $450 million for using Cuba port

WASHINGTON

Four cruise lines have been sentenced by a US judge to pay a total of nearly $450 million for having used a Havana port nationalized by the Cuban government in 1960.    

The ruling by a federal judge in Florida requires the Carnival, MSC SA, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian lines to pay $109 million each, plus court costs, to Havana Docks, an American company that held the concession to use that facility.    

Havana Docks was deprived of its right to use the port following the Communist revolution on the Caribbean island.    

The court found that the defendants, all of which made port stops in Havana, had “derived significant amounts of revenue - in the hundreds of millions of dollars each - from their wrongful trafficking activities, and to plaintiff’s detriment,” Judge Beth Bloom wrote.    

The United States has imposed an economic embargo on the island since 1962.     

President Barack Obama eased its terms in 2016, allowing cruise lines to make stopovers in Cuba, but his successor, Republican Donald Trump, reversed that decision.     

The current ruling is based not on the embargo, however, but on a provision in a 1996 law, the Helms-Burton Act, that had remained inactive until now.    

At the time, the U.S. Congress wanted to discourage investment in Cuba by allowing any American whose assets had been expropriated by the Castro government to sue those who profited from its use.    

But successive American presidents had suspended application of the measure until Trump decided in 2019 to let it take effect.    

A flurry of legal actions followed, and the case involving the cruise lines -- all of which are registered in other countries but have important presences in Florida -- has been the first to come to a head.    

In March, Judge Bloom had found the four cruise lines guilty of “trafficking” and engaging in “prohibited tourism.” 

On Dec. 30, she announced their penalty.

[NSXCIGAR]

I'd like to know how docking in Havana generated hundreds of millions in revenue for the cruise lines. 

Now will the money actually go to the exiles?

[El Presidente]

1 minute ago, NSXCIGAR said:

I'd like to know how docking in Havana generated hundreds of millions in revenue for the cruise lines. 

Now will the money actually go to the exiles?

I'd like to know how the Cruiselines knew that one president would roll back and enact retrospectivity on the decisions of a previous president. 

Talk about dictatorship and market abuse, 

[NSXCIGAR]

37 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

I'd like to know how the Cruiselines knew that one president would roll back and enact retrospectivity on the decisions of a previous president. 

Talk about dictatorship and market abuse, 

I had assumed they had continued to dock after Trump rolled it back but if they're going after them for activity during the period between 2016 and 2019 then that is outrageous. I need to read the decision to see what the basis is for penalizing the 2016-2019 activity and how they calculated the revenue.

[rcarlson]

55 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

I'd like to know how the Cruiselines knew that one president would roll back and enact retrospectivity on the decisions of a previous president. 

Talk about dictatorship and market abuse, 

Looking at your auto tagline below the comment, I had to laugh.   

[helix]

So who gets the 450,000,000$ ?

[Corylax18]

2 hours ago, helix said:

So who gets the 450,000,000$ ?

Really? You couldn't read two sentences in?

 

6 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

I'd like to know how docking in Havana generated hundreds of millions in revenue for the cruise lines. 

Now will the money actually go to the exiles?

Nope, Straight to a shell corporation that some one has paid to keep registered for the last 60 years on the hope that a hail mary like this would be caught. It was probably a pretty good investment for some one. 

Look up "Havana Docks" You'll probably find nothing, beyond a sole employee, who's held a myriad of IT/Journalism positions during his stints as "VP" and "President" of the company. 

Its beyond petty and embarrassing at this point. 

[helix]

To be specific.

"The United States government knows him as certified foreign claim number CU-2492. But he wants to make a more personal introduction to Tampa Bay.

He is Mickael Behn, a 43-year-old U.S. citizen residing in England, where he works in television production.

And, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, Behn is the rightful owner of Havana Harbor, the cruise ship terminal for Cuba's capital city."

 

https://www.tampabay.com/news/business/tourism/The-federal-government-says-this-man-rightfully-owns-Havana-s-cruise-port_169234241/