WILLEMSTAD – The Central Bank of Curaçao and St. Maarten (CBCS) will start collecting compensations to which the insurance company ENNIA is entitled according to a ruling from the court of first instance on Monday November 29, 2021.
During a press conference on November 30, Dr. José Jardim, financial and economic director of the CBCS, indicated that they have tried about twenty times to collect the compensations from owner Hushang Ansary but to no avail.
An independent judge has ruled that amounts have been unlawfully withdrawn from the insurance company in the past by the then directors and shareholder Ansary. Accomplices received a letter of interruption from the CBCS, with which the Central Bank makes clear that it will take steps against them. Jardim now indicates that this will also happen.
According to the judge, the daughter of Ansary, shareholder Parman International Nina Ansary, and the former directors Ralph Palm, Abdallah Andraous and Gijsbert van Doorn acted unlawfully. The judge has determined that they have caused ENNIA serious damage and that they must repay more than a billion guilders to the insurance company.
Former Directors Ralph Palm and Abdallah Andraous
In a reaction yesterday, Hushang Ansary indicated that the judgement was a ‘major miscarriage of justice’.
“The judgement by the Court has disregarded extensive evidence which clearly showed that none of the claims are valid,” Ansary said in a press release issued following the verdict. “It is my belief that this ruling will long serve as an extraordinary case study in the United States and elsewhere in the advanced nations and as a warning against the perils of investments no matter how successful and well intentioned, in any country with legislation which permits the seizure of private property without a right of appeal.”
Ansary said it could be a case study because, on one hand, it represents years of annual approvals of financial statements of ENNIA insurance companies by the Central Bank of Curaçao and St. Maarten, and on the other hand the total reversal of such approvals by the same Central Bank over a decade later.
“This reversal was followed in July 2018, by the improper takeover of significant privately held assets of US citizens which were in no way subject to the insurance act. Equally important, at the moment of the seizure, the ENNIA insurance companies had the best of relations with their policyholders, had no third-party creditors or claims other than in the ordinary course of business, with cash, cash equivalents and other valuable assets hugely in excess of their short and long-term needs,” Ansary said in the release.
“Regretfully, by this time, many millions appear to have been squandered and need to be accounted for. The US investors will take all necessary actions to protect their rights and property.” He said the judgement represents “a major miscarriage of justice in every sense of the word.”
