PHILIPSBURG – The petition attorneys Karina Keizer and Sabine Altena submitted to the court in Curacao on behalf of insurance company ENNIA alleges that three St. Maarteners benefited excessively from questionable payments made by ENNIA Caribe Holding (ECH): Andy Wescot, the son of parliamentarian Sarah Wescot-Williams, former Minister of Finance Richard Gibson Sr. and Clarence Derby, the managing director of The Towers in Mullet Bay.
According to the petition, ENNIA made excessive payments to people who were not employed by the company. “Within the human resources department of ENNIA they were classified as supervisory director while they never held such a position,” the petition states. “These individuals did not go through a single job interview. Usually the human resources department received the instruction to put them on the payroll and how much to pay them periodically. None of them had a labor contract or a service agreement with any ENNIA-entity.”
Between 2008 and 2018 ENNIA paid these people 10,805,610 guilders (a bit more than $6 million).
One of the recipients is Andy Wescot, the son of United Democrats parliamentarian Sarah Wescot-Williams. “Mr. Wescot has been on the payroll of NIB (National Investment Bank – another Ansary-company) since July 2008,” the petition states. “Until the emergency measure (July 4, 2018 – ed.) ENNIA paid him 3,513,078 guilders ($1.96 million).”
Until 2016, ENNIA Caribe Investments (ECI) paid a part of the total (an amount of 676,890 guilders or $378,150), before Banco di Caribe and NIB took over.
“As far as ENNIA has been able to establish, Mr. Wescot at most provided limited services to ENNIA, let alone services that justify compensation on such an excessive scale,” the petition states.
Another local recipient was Clarence Derby, the managing director of The Towers in Mullet Bay. “He did several things for Ansary personally but at no moment did he work for an ENNIA-entity,” the attorneys write. “In spite of this, ECI or ECH (the holding company) paid him 3,845,575 guilders ($2.1 million) between June 2008 and July 2018.”
Other recipients were Evan Tromp, Kelly Clifford, Aghili Cyrus, Elizabeth Leos, Chris Archie en Caspian Tavalli. But the one recipient that stands out the most for St. Maarteners is former Minister of Finance Richard Gibson Sr.
Supervisory directors of ENNIA Caribe Holding received a standard compensation of 45,500 guilders net ($25,419), but Ansary’s confidants like his daughter Nina, Frank Carlucci and Gibson received a different treatment. Over the years 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 they received bonuses of at least $100,000, while ENNIA’s financial results could not justify these payments.
The supplemental payments to Gibson fall in a “class apart” according to the petition. “In 2014, Mr. Gibson left to become Minister of Finance and interim Minister of Justice in St. Maarten. Ansary awarded him a departure bonus of 2,045,023.33 guilders gross (1,274,000 net or $711,732). Over the period from 2006 Mr. Gibson was paid more than 7.5 million guilders,” the petition states. The exact amount is listed as 7,771,303 guilders or $4.3 million.
The attorneys note that Gibson was not only a supervisory director of ECH and Banco di Caribe: he was also an advisor to ENNIA: “Ennia does not know which activities or services Gibson has provided to ENNIA next to his (limited) actions as a supervisory director.”
According to the attorneys the bonuses and other payments were disproportionate compared to market-conform compensation. While ENNIA paid between 2006 and 2018 more than 18.6 million guilders ($10.4 million), the standard for the same period was more like 4.4 million ($2.5 million), the petition states.
The attorneys calculated that the excessive payments amount to more than 14 million guilders or $7.8 million and they demand that Ansary gives that money back to the insurance company.
Special report: Were taxes paid?
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