WILLEMSTAD - Today, January 30, 2019, the Court of First Instance of Sint Maarten issued a judgment in the interim proceedings between interCaribbean against InselAir and its superintendent.

The decision of the Court of First Instance is that InselAir must cancel the seizure of fuel of one of the intercaribbean aircraft on Sint Maarten as soon as interCaribbean provides it with a bank guarantee of USD 500,000.

The removal of the lien must take place because inter-Caribbean will suffer disproportionate damage as a result of this attachment, as it has canceled all flights to Sint Maarten as a result. The bank guarantee must be provided because interCaribbean has failed to comply with the judgment of the Court of First Instance in Curacao on 28 December 2018.

It states that it must provide enough assurance for the homologation of the creditors' agreement and if it does not, it will forfeit a penalty of USD 500,000. The Court considers it important that judgments are complied with but understands that if the summary judgment of 28 December 2018 is annulled on appeal and intercaribbean is right, it is not likely that the penalty payment of USD 500,000 will be paid to InselAir.

InselAir's claims for the acquisition of its shares, making funds and aircraft available have been rejected. Partly because those claims have already been rejected by the Court of First Instance of Curaçao and the court cannot rule on the same claim twice. This is also because the Court can quickly rule on this in an appeal in summary proceedings.

Furthermore, because there are new circumstances after this verdict, such as the pertinent refusal of interCaribbean to want to do business with InselAir, because of the aircraft, but also because InselAir conditionally dissolved the Heads of Agreement (HOA). The Court of First Instance has not been able to establish that after performance by IC the fulfillment by the parties of the HOA is a foregone conclusion.