PHILIPSBURG — The court in Philipsburg does not acknowledge a ruling from the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma that ordered the operator of a local air ambulance company, to pay more than $544,000 in lease installments and interest to aircraft least company Delta Wing Equipment in Carson City, the capital of Nevada. The judge decided that the court will have to handle the case again in order to hear all arguments from both parties.
In 2016 the St. Maarten-based air ambulance company leased two Cessna Caravan airplanes from aircraft leasing company Delta Wing Equipment (DWE) with the intention to use them for ambulance transports from St. Maarten. The company’s CEO made a down payment of $100,000 before seeing the planes.
But when the Cessna’s arrived in St. Maarten it soon appeared that there were plenty of problems. The papers were not in order, the planes did not meet the correct maintenance protocols, parts and tools were not according to the specifications of the manufacturer and there were discrepancies with the registered flying hours. One plane had to be returned for the installation of the proper landing gear.
DWE sent the plane to Puerto Rico where apparently the landing gear were outfitted with false tags. These shortcomings did not escape the attention of the St. Maarten Civil Aviation Authority. It refused to issue the required PJ-registration for the planes because parts and tools were not certified. That was reason for the air ambulance operator to stop paying the lease.
DWE took the air ambulance operator to court and on August 3, 2018, it obtained a favorable ruling from the District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. It ordered the air ambulance operator to pay a bit more than $544,000 plus interest to DWE.
The air ambulance operator did not obey the court order, and it dropped its defense because of the astronomical costs associated with the procedure. According to the ruling of the court in Philipsburg, these costs are 23 times higher in the United States than they are in St. Maarten, thus representing around 50 percent of the principal amount.
That amounts to punitive damages and that is not allowed in St. Maarten, the court ruled. The air ambulance operator pointed in its defense to mounting evidence of unfair business practices by DWE and to the fact that the court in Oklahoma had not bothered to research the facts of the case. They also consider the imposed interest rate of 18 percent as unfair and demand that the court lower it to a more reasonable 3 percent.
The court examined the so-called Gazprom-criteria to decide whether the American court ruling can be executed in St. Maarten. The Gazprom-ruling of the Dutch Supreme Court establishes that such rulings by foreign courts must meet four criteria.
One of these requirements is that the decision by the foreign court must be based on a court procedure that meets the requirements of appropriate and sufficiently guaranteed administration of justice. The Oklahoma-ruling does not meet this requirement because it ignored the air ambulance operator’s argument that the planes were not deregistered in the United States and that the St. Maarten Civil Aviation authority, therefore, refused to register them in St. Maarten. The American judge completely ignored a written statement from the SMCAA about this issue.
The court also found that the American ruling violates the public order in St. Maarten. The judge, therefore, decided not to acknowledge the Oklahoma-ruling and to handle the dispute in its entirety at a later date. The judge referred the case to the civil court session on June 15 for conclusion and an interim-ruling.
