An action filed by the Gibson law firm for $232,802.42 in fees, in addition to damages; interest and costs against Baha Mar Development Company, has been settled out of court.
The dispute over legal fees owed the law firm and charges owed Michelle Y. Roberts and Co and L.T.D. Surveying and Engineering Ltd was filed in the Supreme Court on October 26, 2005 and settled by the disputing parties the following month.
The Gibson firm in which Financial Services and Investments Minister Allyson Maynard Gibson was senior partner until she joined the Cabinet of Prime Minister Perry Christie, said in its statement of claim that on or about May 10, 2004 Gibson and Company and Sarkis Izmirlian, Cayside Develpment Ltd, and BahaMar Development Co., Ltd, defendants, entered into a “parole contract” in which the law firm was to provide legal services associated with the purchase and redevelopment of the Cable Beach properties for which Sarkis Izmirlian and his companies agreed to pay.
The law firm, the first plaintiff in the action, sent the Izmirlians invoices for services for $192,756.97.
The Gibson law firm, acting on the Izmirlians’ instructions engaged the services of Michelle Roberts and Company and L.T.D. Surveying and Engineering Ltd, second and third plaintiffs in the action, for which they were to receive fees for “further payment” to the two contracted companies. The two companies submitted bills totalling $41,045.45.
In its statement of claim the law firm said that it had demanded payment for $192.756.97 and $41,045.45, but the defendants in “breach of contract have either failed and/or refused to pay the same whereby the plaintiffs have suffered loss and damage.”
Under the Civil Procedure (Award of Interest) Act, the three plaintiffs claimed interest on the sum owed.
The total claimed was $232,802.42, plus damages and costs.
Source: The Tribune
