WILLEMSTAD – According to sources, the bankruptcy trustees of the defunct InselAir International are still considering a case against inter-Caribbean in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

These lawyers say the fact is that the estate deficit of InselAir would have been 99 million dollars lower if inter-Caribbean would have provided sufficient security. In order to initiate proceedings on the merits, permission from the examining magistrate is required, which has not yet been requested. 

Just before bankruptcy, various proceedings were conducted against inter-Caribbean concerning the takeover. In summary proceedings, the Court ruled that inter-Caribbean could not be required to provide sufficient security for the creditors’ agreement and could not be required to take over the shares in InselAir if no ownership structure acceptable to inter-Caribbean were realized. This has to do with the so-called “local ownership” requirements.

That the bankruptcy trustees – Rogier van den Heuvel and Stan van Liere of the law firm VanEps Kunneman VanDoorne – are still considering a matter of substance is, in their opinion, essentially because they believe that the Court has “given insufficient weight” to, first, the reputation of inter-Caribbean with the ‘local ownership’ requirements and, secondly, the fact that the Country of Curaçao has ‘precisely given the comfort that the parties had an agreement’.

By order of 16 January 2019, the Court of First Instance of Curaçao refused the so-called homologation of the creditors’ agreement of 4 December 2018. On 21 January, interCaribbean Airways Ltd., established in the Turks and Caicos Islands, appealed against the decision of 16 January. The trustees also appealed against the decision.

The bankruptcy trustees: “Briefly stated, the court refused the homologation of the creditors agreement on the ground that compliance with the agreement of 4 December 2018 was insufficiently secured.”

At the hearing on appeal it was established that both InselAir and inter-Caribbean no longer saw any possibilities to implement the Heads of Agreement of 16 November 2018. This also precludes interCaribbean providing sufficient security for compliance with the creditor agreement, according to the Common Court of Justice.

The Court has considered that InselAir’s license to fly has expired, it has ceased its operations and that there is no prospect of improving the situation. The investigation has shown that the airline leaves several debts unpaid and that it is in a state of having stopped paying. InselAir was declared bankrupt on February 26, 2019.