A New York Judge has ordered a Chinese construction company to pay $1.6 billion to the developer of a Bahamian casino resort over delays, finding China Construction America Inc. engaged in fraud.
The decision from Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Andrew Borrok awarded the developer behind Baha Mar, BML Properties, the entire $845 million investment in the development, as well as interest on that amount dating back to May 2014.
BML Properties was represented by a team from Susman Godfrey and Dorf Nelson & Zauderer.
“We are pleased with the Court’s ruling that allows our client to recover the significant losses resulting from CCA’s egregious conduct,” plaintiff’s counsel and Susman Godfrey partner Jacob Buchdahl said in a statement.
“This landmark result was a total vindication,” he added.
BML filed suit against CCA in 2017, alleging the Chinese contractor had engaged in a “massive fraud” and contract breach claiming it intended to meet a planned 2014 deadline to open the resort.
The suit alleged the state-owned company knew it would not meet deadlines yet created the illusion it would in order to collect fees.
A spokesperson with China Construction America (CCA) called the ruling “deeply flawed under well-settled principles of New York Law.”
Borrok, of the Manhattan Commercial Division, issued the 74-page decision on October 18 following an 11-day bench trial.
Fraud, the judge found, was “established beyond doubt.”
Borrok found that a board member of a defendant entity had breached the investors agreement at “no fewer than six times” and committed “at least four instances of fraud.”
BML was represented by Buchdahl, Elisha Barron, Tamar Lusztig and Stephanie Spies of Susman Godfrey and Mark Zauderer and Jason Cohen of Dorf Nelson & Zauderer.
CCA’s spokesperson said the decision “ignores indisputable evidence that BML Properties overborrowed, overspent and overextended itself and then drove the project into a wrongful, secret bankruptcy to eliminate its obligations at the expense of other stakeholders.”
CCA was represented by a team from Debevoise & Plimpton. Defense counsel did not return a request for comment.
The resort, located on the island of New Providence, opened in 2017.