Published: 04 March 2021
PHILIPSBURG: - On 1 September 2017, The Public Prosecutor s Office submitted a request with the Joint Court of Justice (the Court) for an inquiry into the Sint Maarten Harbour Group (the Port): a so-called civil inquiry (civiele enquête).
The Public Prosecutor’s Office deemed it necessary – for reasons of public interest – to make the Port subject to an in-depth investigation as there were well-grounded reasons to doubt the corporate policy pursued throughout the last decade.
The importance of such investigation was emphasized by the results of the criminal investigations codenamed Emerald and Larimar. These investigations revealed - among other things - that the Port has been subject to serious malpractices for an extended period of time. Invoice fraud resulted in a financial loss of more than ten million American dollars. Systematic corruption occurred, for example around the bidding process in relation to tenders for infrastructure
Published: 14 December 2020
PHILIPSBURG: - On Friday 11 December 2020, the Joint Court of Justice (the Court) rejected the request of the Public Prosecutor s Office to institute an inquiry on the corporate policy pursued by the Sint Maarten Harbour Group (the Port).
In 2016, the Public Prosecutor s Office started a preliminary investigation in response to repeated signals from the community of serious malpractices and mismanagement within the Port. Based on the results, the Public Prosecutor s Office submitted a request for an investigation on 1 September 2017, a so-called civil inquiry (civiele enquête).
According to the Court, at an earlier stage of the proceedings, there were well-founded reasons to doubt the correctness of the corporate policy pursued by the Port. However, now that the former chairman of the board has been dismissed, there is no evidence of other rotten apples within the organization (according to the Court) ánd the Port has implemented a numbe