InselAir must lift attachment on interCaribbean as soon as a bank guarantee has been provided

Today, January 30th 2019, the Court of First Instance of Sint Maarten ruled in interlocutory proceedings between interCaribbean against InselAir and its administrator. The Court of First Instance's decision is that InselAir must lift the fuel seizure of one of the interCaribbean aircraft in Sint Maarten as soon as interCaribbean provides it with a USD 500,000 bank guarantee.

The attachment must be lifted because interCaribbean is suffering disproportionate damage as a result of this attachment, as a result of which it has canceled all its flights to Sint Maarten. The bank guarantee must be provided because interCaribbean has failed to comply with the judgment of the Court of First Instance in First Instance of Curaçao of  December 28th  2018. It states that it had to provide sufficient security for the homologation of the creditors' agreement and if it does not, it forfeits a penalty of USD 500,000. The Court considers it important that judgments are complied with, but understands that if the interlocutory judgment of December 28th  2018 is set aside on appeal and thus interCaribbean is proved right, it is unlikely that the penalty of USD 500,000.00 will be charged to InselAir can tell.

The claims of InselAir for the acquisition of its shares, the provision of money and aircraft have been rejected. Partly because those claims have already been rejected by the Court of First Instance of Curaçao and the court may not decide twice on the same claim. Also because the Court of Appeal in interlocutory proceedings can judge this quickly. Furthermore, there are new circumstances after this judgment, such as the pertinent refusal of interCaribbean to want to do business with InselAir any longer, because of the aircraft seizure, but also because InselAir conditionally dissolved the Heads of Agreement (HOA). The Court of First Instance was not able to establish that, after collateral by IC, compliance by the parties of the HOA is a settled case.

Read the statement here