Ansary to court on March 30
WILLEMSTAD – The Court in First Instance in Curacao will handle the liability procedure against insurance company ENNIA’s major shareholder Hushang Ansary and other former managers on March 30, the Antilliaans Dagblad reported, based on information obtained from the information desk of the Common Court of Justice.
Ansary will have to give account for the funds he extracted from ENNIA; the insurance company operates since 2018 under an emergency measure.
The procedure against Ansary has also been filed at the Bankruptcy Court Southern District of New York by the American law office of David Polk&Wardwell.
The entities of ENNIA Caribe want the court to establish liability, but their main objective is to force Ansary and all other defendants to compensate for all damages and to find a solution for the huge solvency deficit. When the court imposed the emergency measure in 2018 that deficit was at least 700 million guilders (almost $389 million). Later it appeared to be even higher.
According to the plaintiffs, the defendants are guilty of mismanagement because they fell short in the execution of their duties in the execution of their responsibilities within the ENNIA Group. Substantial amounts of money were taken out of the companies while ENNIA did not receive the transactions it was entitled to.
“Ansary is personally liable because he used his enormous influence within ENNIA to extract assets for the benefit of himself and others.”
Some of the other subpoenaed former managers received excessive high benefits, expense compensation and bonus payments, the notice to the court in New York states. The plaintiffs also hold conflicts of interest against a number of former managers and shareholders.
The information about the wrongdoing in the ENNIA top surfaced through research that was done after the implementation of the emergency measure in combination with forensic investigations of financial transactions.
The plaintiffs filed their petition to the court on November 11, 2019. The court in Curacao announced on December 17 that it would go ahead with the trial. Shortly afterward the bankruptcy court in New York was informed about the proceedings through an English translation of the petition.
The Central Bank of Curacao and St. Maarten (CBCS) controls the ENNIA Group since the emergency measure went into force; its priority is to end the solvency deficit as soon as possible. This requires repayment by Ansary and his co defendants.
However, so far Ansary has refused to cooperate and to repay ENNIA, in spite of dozens of conversations and attempts to negotiate. Several sources told the Antilliaans Dagblad that the CBCS-top has held two more meetings with Ansary in recent weeks.
At the Central Bank alarm bells went off when it appeared that shareholder Parman – an entity controlled by Ansary – together with ENNIA Caribe Holding and ENNIA Caribe Investments (ECI) had appropriated 1.5 billion guilders (approximately $838 million) from ENNIA’s policyholders.
In 2005, ECI invested money it took from the insurance company-entities in Stewart & Stevenson, a company active in the oil industry. In 2017, Ansary sold all shares in this company for around $760 million. The ENNIA insurance entities should have received 1 billion guilders ($558.7 million) from this deal because 74 percent of the shares were financed with its money. But they received only 516 million guilders ($282.2 million), thus robbing them of approximately 489 million guilders ($273 million).
The Central Bank established in 2019 that ENNIA Caribe Life had a solvency deficit of 1.4 billion guilders ($782.1 million) at the end of 2018; at ENNIA Caribe Schade the deficit was more than 35 million guilders ($19.5 million) and at ENNIA Caribe Zorg over 11 million guilders ($6.1 million); altogether, a solvency deficit of almost $808 million.
Source: https://antilliaansdagblad.com/nieuws-menu/20964-ansary-zaak-op-30-maart-voor-de-rechter
Photo caption: Major shareholder of ENNIA, Mr. Hushang Ansary. Photto taken from Antilliaans Dagblad.
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