Sandals Resorts International 2000 Ltd in The Bahamas has filed a motion in the Bahamian Supreme Court seeking to bar Queen’s Counsel K.D. Knight from representing Jeffrey Pyne, a former employee of Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, chairman of the Sandals Group.
Pyne is being sued by Sandals for allegedly making US$1.6 million in political donations in The Turks and Caicos Islands.
Knight told The Gleaner yesterday that he should have gone to The Bahamas yesterday to represent Pyne in the case tomorrow.
He said he was informed that Sandals had filed a motion in court seeking to prevent him from appearing in the case on the grounds that he was not a fraud-case specialist.
He said if the case had gone ahead tomorrow as planned, he was going to make an application to have the case against Pyne thrown out. He said one of the issues he was going to raise was that The Bahamas was not the proper venue for the case.
The action, filed on June 30 this year, is alleging that Pyne caused the Bahamian company and another Sandals entity to make a series of seven unauthorised wire transfers to three Turks and Caicos-based companies between March 3, 2005, and October 26, 2006.
Sandals Resorts International 2000, in its statement of claim, is alleging that the seven wire transfers, totalling US$1.65 million, “were not made for any legitimate commercial or other purpose of the plaintiff’s business or interests”.
Pyne and two former executives are charged in Jamaica with conspiracy to defraud the Appliance Traders Limited (ATL) Group Pension Fund and Gorstew Ltd.
